Wool Dryer Balls

I have some plastic dryer balls. They look a little like a cross between a porcupine and a racquetball. My mom bought them for me several years ago when we started having trouble with our dryer.  The purpose of the dryer balls is to help the clothes tumble and therefore, dry faster.  I haven't done any scientific experiments, but they seem to cut down slightly on the dry times of large loads.

Once upon a time I had 4 dryer balls but one of them split open.  I'm thinking it had some sort of defect in the plastic.  Mrblocko's sweatshirt sleeves also like to eat them.  I don't know why I never notice it when I'm hanging them up, or even think to look inside them when I'm doing a second load of laundry and all the dryer balls are MIA.

Anyhow, I saw this tutorial for wool dryer balls from Good Mama and thought it would be a fun thing to try.  I got two dryer balls from one skein of 100% wool yarn from Joann Fabrics.  I can't remember what brand, just that it was half off at the time.

All you really need to do is wrap the yarn into a small ball.

As you can see here, mine is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

Then you stick the dryer balls in a sock or nylon of some sort, knotting the sock in between each ball.  I used a holey old knee high sock and was able to easily fit two of them in there. If you don't stick them in some sort of sock, they will unravel before the yarn gets a chance to felt together.

I tossed this weird looking sock in with the HOT washes, like whites and towels.  I would say it was about a total of four washes and drys.  I had to spread this out over two weeks as we are a small family who only does three loads of laundry a week.

Once the balls have been through the wash and dryer for a few times, add second layer.

Wash and dry them a few times and add a third layer. And, yep you guessed it, wash and dry them a few more times.

Here is what they look like after the final felting. (The blue spiky thing is one of my plastic dryer balls.)

The final product is slightly smaller than a tennis ball.

This project took me several weeks to finish simply because we don't do a lot of laundry in our house, but over all it was one of the easiest craft projects I've done in a long time.

P.S. I bet these would also make great cat toys, provided you don't have old man cats like me.

PBJ Ice Cream a la "The King"

What this ice cream should really be called is a "hunka chunka freezin' love".

A few weeks ago I accidentally bought a gallon of milk when we already had over a gallon in the fridge! Yikes. It was pretty crowded in there so I thought there was no better way to get rid of all that extra milk than to make us some ice cream. This recipe for peanut butter cup ice cream from Recipe Girl seemed like it would really hit the spot.

Hmmm...but I had a lot of other things that I wanted to use up. Like frozen bananas and strawberry freezer jam that never set up properly. (Man do I ever have lots of that stuff.)  But jelly goes well with peanut butter.  And Elvis teaches us bananas go well with peanut butter too.  So why not do both!

My husband proclaimed that this is the most disgusting looking ice cream ever. Of course he redeemed himself by saying it was also the best tasting ice cream ever.  It really was! (Gross looking and super duper yummy.)  And this coming from the man who has repeatedly said he doesn't care for peanut butter desserts.  (Maybe I shouldn't listen to him when he says stuff like that cause I know what I'm talking about when it comes to desserts.  If I know one thing, it's the goodness of desserts.  Yeah!)

Anyhow, back on track!  I didn't use any cream, just 100% skim milk.  There is so much sugar and other things going on, no one missed the cream.    If you are super picky about the texture of the ice cream, by all means, use a more fatty filled cow based mammary glad liquid product. 

As we had lots of little bunny shaped peanut butter "cups" left over from the Easter bunny, I chopped those little suckers up and used them instead of the traditional Reece's PB cups.  I probably had a little too much fun mutilating the peanut butter bunnies.  It was a good thing that no one else was home to hear my maniacal laughter.  (It's the little things that get me through the day.)  Unfortunately, I was about 1/8c shy of the required amount of pb cups.  So, I did the next best thing and chopped up a Hershey bar that I had leftover from when I made S'more Cookies last month.  They did the trick quite nicely.

I can't decide if I like this peanut butter ice cream, or the chocolate peanut butter swirl Ice Cream I made last year.  While they are both peanut butter ice creams, they are so different.  This one has peanut butter flavored ice cream with chocolatey peanut butter bits, while the other one is chocolate ice cream with peanut butter blobs.  They might seem like they should taste the same, but they are really so different.  I suggest you make both and decide for yourself!

Hunka Chunka Freezin Love - PB Banana Ice Cream with Mutilated Peanut butter cup bunnies and Strawberry jelly swirl adapted from Recipe girl
1 1/4 c creamy peanut butter
3/4 c sugar
1 large very ripe banana
3 1/4 c milk (or 1 1/4c milk and 2 c cream)
1 1/2 t vanilla
1 1/2c chopped pb cups (or bunnies if you are into that sort of thing)
strawberry jelly/syrup (if you use jelly nuke it until it is melted and liquidy - about 30 sec or so)

With a mixer, combine peanut butter, sugar and mashed banana until smooth.  Slowly add in 1 c of milk.  Mix on low for 2 minutes until sugar is fully dissolved and no longer grainy.  Add the remainder of the milk and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.  Pour into your ice cream maker and prepare as suggested by the manufacturer.   It will probably take about 25-30 minutes.  I tried to add my pb cups at the last 5 minutes of blending, but my ice cream maker didn't like that, so I poured the ice cream into a shallow freezer safe container and then stirred in my pb cups.  Once the pb cups were evenly distributed, I added in a few swirls of strawberry syrup.  I eyeballed this so I'm not certain of the amount I used.  It was probably somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 c.  At this point the ice cream will be very soft.  It is best after it sits in the freezer for 3-5 hours.  If you should have leftovers at this point, be advised that the ice cream will be diamond hard.  I usually leave the ice cream on the counter while we are eating dinner and it is scoop-able by the time we are done. 

Winner! Winner! Cake for Dinner!

Ok. So we didn't really have cake for dinner. 

But I did win all this cake loot from a contest over at Cookie madness!!!!

The cake is not a lie.

The package contained: two boxes of Duncan Hines French Vanilla Cake Mix, Devils Food Cake Mix, 4 tubs of frosting creations, and a packet each of strawberry shortcake, orange cream, cherry vanilla and chocolate marshmallow frosting mix ins.

I haven't had time to make anything with my cake-y loot.  I can't decide what to make first.  It's hard to think clearly when you are dancing around singing a song about free cake.

Thankful Thurs #18

1. It stopped raining long enough to move the swing set over from our neighbor's yard to ours.

2. No one, person, place, or thing was injured or maimed in the moving of the swing set.

3. Prayer.

4. Crafty time.

5. The speech one of the Graduating Seniors made on Youth Sunday.

6. Getting the gutters cleaned out.

7. Chewin' the fat with my mom.

8. I didn't send Blockette to school on Tues.  (Even though I thought about sending her just to see what the school nurse would say.  Hey her eye was only a little pink right?)

9. Blockette has been really good about taking her eye drops.

10.  I rescheduled my girls beading day with my best friend that I was supposed to go to on Tues.  (Was it ever nice to be out of the house and not around a bored six year old who wanted to watch "Gnomeo and Juliet" AGAIN.)

sWiNgY sWiNgY sWinG!!!

A few weeks ago I mentioned I was thankful for a talk I had with one of our neighbors. I was sealing the fence in his yard and I just assumed, as it was during the day on a school day, no one was home.  I think we both startled each other!  Anyhow, we got to chatting and out of the blue he asked me if I wanted their swing set.  For free. 

What!?

As our backyard is such a weird shape, I told him I didn't think it would fit.  I went and got a tape measure anyway. 

OH my GOODNESS!  There was room.  Just enough room!

Blockette was going to get a swing set!  Did you know this was her life long dream?  I did because she has told me repeatedly.

It took a few weeks for Mrblocko and our neighbor's schedule to coincide, but on Saturday they moved the swing set into our yard. 

The swings were pretty rusted so I ordered some new ones online.  They arrived Monday right before she got home from school.

Monday afternoon was a singing and swinging extravaganza.

Too bad it rained all day Tuesday, and she was home from school with pink eye to boot.

I told her eventually it will stop raining, and there will be plenty more times to go outside and swing.

April Reads

A short list of reads again this month. I've been having such a hard time making time to read. I've been in a cross stitching and tv watching mode at night I guess.

1. Writing Jane Austen by Elizabeth Aston. A the first chapter of a manuscript was found that was believed to be written by Jane Austen. This author, for her sophomore novel, was bullied into completing it. The kicker is, that although she writes historical fiction, this novel is not in her area of expertise, particularly because she has never read or seen a single piece of Jane Austen's work. Slowly as her deadline approaches, after much internal struggle, she becomes entranced with the Austen world. I was surprised but pleased with the ending. I was afraid that the book would end quaint and contrived. The ending is happy, but it left me cheering instead of rolling my eyes. I think this is a great book for those just slightly interested in Austen to the diehard fan. Incidentally, the author of this book has written several novels that were a type of sequel to Jane Austen's stories. I don't really have any desire to read them as I feel Austen's stories can stand alone and I can leave the rest to my imagination.

2. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book 3 The Unseen Guest by Maryrose Wood.  This is, as the title suggests the third book in the series.  An amusing side story: My husband likes to read the jackets of the books I bring home from the library.  Oh, it's not cause he is wanting to make sure I'm reading quality books.  He just wants to find out if it's something he'd like to read.  You see, occasionally, our literary tastes overlap.  So he says to me, "That sounds like an interesting book, but did you know it is the third book in the series?"  I said, "Yes, that's why I checked it out.  Did you want to read the first one?"  And then he said, "No.  I meant it sounded interesting for you."  Well la de da captain obvious.  Isn't it grand to know that I am able to check books out for myself that I might find interesting.  What a nut!  Anyhow, back to the Unseen Guest.  The main character, Penelope, the nanny of 3 children raised by wolves, has come no closer to realizing that her employer might just be a werewolf.  She does however get to meet the wolves that cared for her charges, but this raises more questions than answers.  I'm still convinced that Penelope is somehow related to the children, and now am speculating that the family of the writer she has taken a fancy to is somehow entwined with the family she works for.  I can't wait for book four!

Venison

The last time we went to my mother-in-laws, she gave us a frozen package of venison tenderloin. Her brother had given it to her, and she said she wasn't sure how to cook it. Mrblocko loves deer meat and snatched that bad boy up.

He had no idea how to cook it either, but had every confidence in my ability to find out on the internet. Sure enough I found this delicious looking recipe for bacon wrapped venison tenderloin from Food.com. I think deer tastes too gamey, but even this recipe sounded awesome.

So I whipped up the marinade, and opened up the package to find...

it had been cut in medallions.

DOH!

There was no way I could reassemble this enough to wrap it in bacon the way the recipe suggested. We thought about wrapping the individual medallions with bacon, but we agreed that the venison would probably get well done before the bacon was fully cooked. Neither of us is a fan of undercooked bacon, or over cooked tenderloin.

So I put the medallions in the marinade I had prepared. After 8 or so hours, Mrblocko simmered them in a small skillet with the marinade.

Here's what some of the meat looked like after it was cooked.

Mrblocko and Blockette really liked it, but of course, I thought it tasted gamey. Hopefully, the next time we get our hands on a deer tenderloin it won't be sliced into medallions and we can test this recipe out properly.

Sweet Bacon Wrapped Venison Tenderloin from Food.com
2 lbs venison tenderloins (a single deer loin or Moose or Elk or Pork or Beef)
1/2 lb bacon (Plain, thin-sliced Bacon is best)
3 cups dark brown sugar
2 cups soy sauce (Regular NOT low-sodium. You'll want the saltiness)
1/4 cup white sugar (Optional for added Sweetness)

Mix brown Sugar and Soy sauce together in a bowl. They should combine nicely into a soupy soy liquid. Put Deer Loin in a cooking tray and pour Brown Sugar/Soy Sauce mixture over loin. Roll tenderloin over in mixture, completely covering it. Let meat marinate in mixture at least 3 hours or overnight in fridge.

Remove loin from tray, and place on a slotted bake sheet with a drip pan or aluminum foil below to catch dripping. Don't throw away marinade.

Wrap a piece of bacon around the very end of the tenderloin, securing the bacon strip with a toothpick. Repeat this process until the entire loin is wrapped in ten or so bacon "loops." The tenderloin should look like an arm with a bunch of wrist watches on it, the watches being the bacon strips.

Drizzle remaining marinade over deer loin. You can continue to baste the loin with the marinade throughout the cooking process with either a brush or a turkey baster.

Place on center rack in oven and bake at 350°F for 30-40* minutes. *This should cook the meat to about Medium. For those of you who prefer rare meat, cut the time to 25-30 minutes and then follow with the "OPTION 2" step below regarding searing.

OPTION 1 - with about 10 minutes of cooking time left, you can lightly dust the top of the loin with white sugar. This creates a sweet crust on top of the bacon. Might be too sweet for some. Try doing it on just HALF of the loin to see if you like it!

OPTION 2 - For a crispier crust and crispier bacon, remove Loin from oven and place the Loin(s) directly on a Grill over medium-high heat to sear the bacon and outer loin.

Remove from oven and place on cutting board. Using a knife, cut the loin between each strip of bacon so that you have many pieces of meat, each with their own toothpick.