I love having a dishwasher! I stuff mine as full as possible (yes, I've practiced this technique!) and these days it gets a run once a day, after dinner.

I have the heat-dry setting turned off, so before I go to bed I open the dishwasher door, pull out the racks, and shake off any excess water from the plastics.

Everything is dry by morning and those early risers (aka my 4 kids!) who are awake at 5am help put things away while I pack Joshua's lunch for work. (This post has some of my dishwasher tips!)

I also like washing some unconventional things in the dishwasher. Here are a few I've done:

1. Toothbrushes! This is especially helpful when the toddler has gotten into the other kids' toothbrushes and done something unsanitary with them (before we started keeping them on the kitchen windowsill for easier access and less mess). My dishwasher detergent has chlorine in it, so it's definitely killing some germs! (Home dishwashers don't get hot enough to sterilize by heat.)

2. Plastic hair brushes and combs. I don't need to wash mine very often, but putting them in the dishwasher is an almost effortless way to clean them! :)

3. Plastic kitchen scrub brushes or vegetable brushes. I use my plastic scrub brush all the time, since I hand-wash my wooden utensils and my cookware. Running it through the dishwasher (usually weekly, for me) gets it nice and clean.

4. Soap dishes, toothbrush holders, and any other small "containers" that end up needing a good Spring cleaning once a year or so.

5. Kids plastic toys (or the plastic containers for them). We also wash toys in the bath tub. That's even more fun for the kids! :)

6. Plastic clothes hangers. If they're really dusty from being in the back of the closet, or dirty from hanging outside on the clothesline, I do a big load of them in my dishwasher. They come out shiny clean!

7. Stove burner pans. Mine don't come 100% clean in the dishwasher, but they do pretty well when I catch spills and wash the pan the same day if possible! :)

8. Glass tray from the microwave. Although normally, I don't let it get bad enough to need more than a quick wipe with the dish rag...

9. Lids for my plastic bean or grain-storage buckets.

10. Metal mesh screen from the kitchen stove hood. You know that screen that gets clogged with grease and dirt? :) I love getting it CLEAN. :)

11. Plastic dust pans. I put these in when I do a load of plastic clothes hangers.

Tips:

I like to put the non-food, non-mouth items in a separate cycle from our dishes if possible.

I also do not use the heated-dry setting (instead, I open the door and allow to air dry). I've never had anything melt on the bottom rack (like plastic hangers, scrub brushes, etc.).

What do you like to add to your dishwasher that's on the unconventional side? :)

Related:

Figuring out how to efficiently load a dishwasher 

Poll: How often do you run your dishwasher?

Help! How do I use a dishwasher?

2 tricks for washing small stuff in the dishwasher

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, we need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Making hamburger patties without mess (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Tea from pine trees (The Local Cook)
3. Easy wheat-free lunch ideas (Jenna at Blessed Roots)
4. Canned "cream of" soup substitute (Willa at Armstrong Family Fare)
5. Cutting dried fruit (Finding Joy in My Kitchen)
6. Turning pan handles in (Kolfinna's Korner) 
7. Croutons tip (Alea at Premeditated Leftovers)
8.

Would you believe we still haven't gone grocery shopping yet this month?! Yesterday was 16 days since buying any groceries, and Joshua made a quick run to the nearby QFC for a couple sale items and bananas. I'm totally out of vegetables (fresh, frozen, or canned except tomatoes), down to just frozen strawberries for fruit, 1 egg left (out of the 10 dozen we bought 17 days ago), 3 cups of milk left, no cheese, no potatoes, etc...

Tonight, Joshua's going to Costco (yay!), and we'll have a full fridge and freezer again. (I'll post about our shopping trip tomorrow.)

I had fun planning this week's menu! And I do like bi-weekly grocery shopping. It saves time and we spend less because we end up eating cheaper things like carrots and extra beans. ;)

Monday

Lentil chili (I have 1/2 an onion left for this!), corn bread (1/2 the recipe since I have 1 egg), and strawberry slushies

Tuesday

Oven-roasted chicken, seasoned baked potato wedges, steamed broccoli

Wednesday

Beef vegetable soup, hearty herb bread

Thursday

Veggie Burgers (recipe from a friend), cooked peas and carrots

Friday

Pan-fried Halibut (new thing I'm trying), oven fries, green beans

Saturday

Easy lasagna, homemade garlic bread, green beans

Sunday

Beef enchiladas (from the freezer), and any leftover veggies, etc. from the fridge

Extras I want to do this week:

Mix up herbs for pregnancy tea (I didn't get that done yet)
Make homemade yogurt
Make creamy pear pie

Breakfasts:

Regular old oatmeal (x3)
Fruit smoothies (including blackberries from our freezer and homemade kefir) (x2)
Crepes and scrambled eggs (x2)

Lunches:

Beans with hot sauce and cheese (I will send this in Joshua's lunches too) or leftovers, bananas

Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu plans! :)

All of my weekly menu plans can be found here.

I've been wanting to make my own scented play dough ever since my friend Melissa gave us some of her homemade holiday-scented play dough 2 years ago. Melissa had the creative idea of using flavored/scented teas in place of the water called for in basic play dough, and it works fabulously, adding more variety to the extracts and oils I already have on hand.

In fact, I didn't buy anything special to make any of these kinds of play dough! The ingredients, coloring, spices, oils, extracts, and teas were all things I already had sitting around.

Homemade scented play dough is very versatile and flexible. There are a variety of ways to achieve the desired "flavors", so you can pick and choose based on what you have in your cupboards. (I resisted scraping seeds out of a real vanilla bean for my "sugar cookie dough" play dough... I mean, it's just play dough, after all.) ;)

Here is the basic homemade play dough recipe. This is the one my mom made, and is very popular in books and online -- and no wonder, because it's easy and good. :) It's safe and easy enough for the kids to do most of the making, non-toxic (but not tasty), and kind of addictive to make once you get started! ;)

Basic Homemade Play Dough (makes 2 cups)
takes 5-10 minutes to mix up and 5 minutes to heat

1 cup all-purpose flour (sift if lumpy)
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tarter
1 cup water or cooled tea (for flavors -- see below)
1 1/2 tablespoons oil (vegetable or canola)
Food coloring, as desired

Directions:

1. In a 2-quart sauce pan, whisk together the flour, salt and cream of tarter. Add the water and oil and whisk until smooth. Add desired food coloring. (Keep in mind that the color will get slightly darker after it's heated.)

2. Place pan over low heat and cook and stir until it thickens and forms a ball (about 5 minutes for a single recipe). When it's impossible to stir and looks like a bug sticky lump, it's done! :)

3. Turn out onto the counter or a mat, scraping pan clean with a spatula. Knead the warm dough a couple times, and place in a loosely-covered container to cool. (Or, let the kids play with it right away!) Store in a sealed container or ziplock bag when not in use.

For gluten-free homemade play dough, check out Michele's recipe at Frugal Granola! :)

Now comes the fun part: picking out some spices, teas, oils, or extracts to add to the basic recipe above and making some holiday-themed play dough that looks and smells awesome! Seriously, if you're like me, you won't be able to stop opening the lids to smell your play doughs when you're done making them.

I'll tell you about the (successful) flavors/scents I've created, and include my as-yet-untested ideas for even more winter flavors at the bottom of this post.

Do NOT worry if you don't have everything listed for the flavor you want to make. Get creative and use whatever you have!! For example, I didn't have all of these teas on hand so I used vanilla or vanilla caramel tea in a number of the recipes. I like to buy Bigelow's holiday teas on clearance or on sale with a coupon, but it's also okay to use something else!

Think of these recipes as a starting point to get you going, okay? :)

Ready? Here is:

Fir Tree / Evergreen (green)
Sugar Cookie Dough (tan)
Peppermint Stick / Candy Cane (pink)
Egg Nog (yellow)
Gingerbread Spice (brown)
Orange / Orange Spice (orange)
Hot Cocoa (dark brown)
Cinnamon Stick (red)

More ideas for holiday-themed play doughs

Tips for making homemade play dough

How cheap is homemade play dough?

Read more...

I love granola bars. But most of the ones from the store (unless you're spending an arm and a leg and getting the super duper healthy ones) are like an on-the-go cookie in my opinion. :)

I tried Christy's recipe for "Perfect Granola Bars" this week. And this recipe does taste like a really good chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookie! So, I tend to think of these as more of a dessert than something that could be regularly called "breakfast".

The kids and I loved these granola bars. We made two batches and they were all eaten in less than 24 hours, if that's saying anything. (Actually, it's probably saying something about my lack of self-control and bad parenting if we ate 36 granola bars in 24 hours' time!!)

What I like about these Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Granola Bars:

They're easy to make. Really, 15 minutes and they're ready to go into the oven.

The recipe seems foolproof. Perfect results --yes, all two times I've made them this week. ;) But really, after dealing with fall-apart granola bars and takes-too-many-special-ingredients granola bars, these are like magic.

They're cooked enough. The oats don't taste raw to me. :) I love the hearty flavor of the oats, whole wheat, and honey. Joshua said he prefers his granola bars without much of a honey taste; I couldn't really even taste the honey. At any rate, they're much better than the gooey "chewy" granola bars from the store, in my opinion. :)

They have chocolate.

...and they're easy to make. If you have 15 minutes, you can pop a dish of these in the oven! (FYI, if you're seven years old like my son, it might take twice as long as that.) :)

I adapted Christy's recipe to use slightly less butter, and expanded the instructions a little so you don't end up smearing chocolate chips everywhere. But really, I hardly changed a thing -- her recipe is excellent! :)

I thought it would be interesting to do a cost breakdown for these granola bars. My kitchen scale was helpful for this since I buy everything in bulk quantities. (And my math skills are up to speed since Yehoshua is doing multiplication and division now.) ;)

Cost breakdown for Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Granola Bars:
I purchased my ingredients at Costco, so I'm using the prices I paid there.

1 1/2 sticks butter -- $0.83 (at $2.20/lb.)

1/2 cup honey -- $0.78 (5.4 oz. at $13.99/96oz.)

1/3 cup (packed) brown sugar -- $0.12 (at $3.39 for 9 1/3 cups)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract -- $0.07 (from my 16oz. Costco bottle)

1 cup freshly ground whole wheat flour -- $0.20 (.28 lb at $0.60/lb. from WinCo)

1 teaspoon baking soda -- ? It came in a 10# bag at Costco! :)

4 1/2 cups rolled oats -- $0.63 (.91lb. at $0.69lb.)

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips -- $0.58 ($6.99/72oz. w/coupon at Costco)

Total cost for 18 granola bars: $3.21 ($0.18 per bar)

My granola bars weighed an average of 2.3 ounces each with a calorie count of 261 per bar (~50% larger than the average store-bought granola bar). Obviously, these granola bars aren't made with puffed rice or other "light" ingredients! ;)

My next quest? Create a healthier protein- and fiber-rich chewy granola bar (without using peanut butter). Any ideas? :)

Related: My mom's Energy Bars recipe is really good (and chewy), but I don't always have corn syrup on hand (it uses 1/2 cup). In fact, I basically never have corn syrup on hand. And they're not quite as good (chewy + holding together) made with honey instead of corn syrup. But if you do have corn syrup, Energy Bars are a great on-the-go granola bar recipe, as well! :)

I've said that salmon is my favorite fish, and it was is. (There was that run-in I had with sea bass last year... indescribable.)

Strangely enough, one of the first indications that I was pregnant this time around was that our normal 1-2 servings of salmon per week was totally not okay with my stomach.

I suddenly could relate to someone who says "I don't like salmon". Joshua's grilled salmon, which I normally love, was stomach-turning. I'd eat one bite and then fill up on vegetables or something else.

But! We did make Baked Teriyaki Salmon that I liked, even when all other salmon was a no-go. Hey, I practice the "take at least one bite" rule we have for the children. ;)

Baked Teriyaki Salmon is super easy to prepare and has a slightly sweet teriyaki flavor and lovely brown color on the outside. I love salmon + teriyaki... they go together wonderfully! And while normally I prefer salmon grilled rather than baked, I really like how this teriyaki salmon turns out in the oven. It's just as good as the grilled version (see additional notes of the recipe for grilling instructions).

If you're on top of things, you can serve Baked Teriyaki Salmon with some rice (or rice noodles) and stir-fried veggies. So far, I've just served ours with steamed broccoli or carrots and rice.

Thankfully, I'm getting past the "I can't stomach salmon" ordeal. That's a very good thing since we still have 25 pounds of salmon in our freezer. Having affordable access to good fish is such a blessing! The Alaskan salmon we get here in Washington is just so much better than anything we ever bought on sale in Ohio or Missouri. As I've said before, good fish will NOT taste "fishy"! ;)

If you do have salmon in your freezer, Baked Teriyaki Salmon will take you about 5 minutes to mix up the marinade and then baking it is the only other hands-on part. (Do plan ahead so the salmon can marinate for a few hours or even longer.)

I pulled out frozen salmon fillets Sunday evening and put them in the fridge to thaw and marinate for dinner tonight (Tuesday). Super simple and the whole family loved it, as always! :)

I can't decide on a kitchen tip today. Nothing in my photo folder seems ingenious enough to have a whole post dedicated to it. So, here are some random kitchen tips for this week! :)

If you can do basic sewing, homemade potholders are easy to make. My mom came up with the idea of using a few layers of fabric from an old sweatshirt for the filling/padding in the potholders. We've been making them that way now for many years. If you have inexpensive (or hand-me-down) fabric for the outside, "upcycle" an old sweatshirt and you've got the materials needed for potholders! :)

I love that the kitchen sink in this rental has a sprayer! Some of my favorite uses for it:

1. Spraying hot water into the sink to make extra-bubbly dish water without using extra dish soap

2. Rinsing dry beans or lentils before cooking them in my crock pot

3. Rinsing wire cooling racks after washing

4. Rinsing/cleaning the sink after tooth-brushing time :)

5. Spraying out my plastic dish-washing brush when stuff gets stuck in it

Empty chocolate syrup bottle? I rinsed it with a little hot water and added it to my morning coffee. :) We don't usually buy chocolate syrup though. It tastes too "fake" to me. :)

When baking multiple things in the oven at the same time, stagger the sheets or pans and rotate half way through baking (switch the bottom one to the top and vice versa). Always leave at least an inch of space between the oven walls and the pans (and other pans!) so the air can circulate, and your food will cook more evenly.

And lastly (off-topic), can you find Ruth (3) in this picture? She disappeared one day and I had to check every room a couple times before I finally found her in here! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, we need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Using frozen food (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Adding milk and cheese to soups (The Local Cook)
3. Soft and fresh cookies tip (Living So Abundantly)
4. Powdered egg replacer (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
5. Keep things from boiling/running over (Cheryl at The Bz House That Love Built)
6. Manicotti, noodles, and frozen banana bread tips (The Bz House That Love Built)
7. Homemade chicken stock tips (Jessica at Delicious Obsessions)
8. Using spaghetti as a cake tester (Stacy at Stacy Makes Cents)
9. Rotating food storage (Anna at Kolfinna's Korner)

Remember how much I liked The Everything Beans Book? I was excited when Katie told me she had another ebook coming out mid-November!

Smart Sweets is a healthy desserts ebook with 30 tried-and-true recipes and lots of "real food" tips for making yummy kitchen treats on the healthier side.

I received a review copy and enjoyed thumbing through it. Smart Sweets is packed with info, like all of Katie's work. If you're looking for healthier dessert recipes that have been tested and are reliable, Smart Sweets is a great resource!

I've been able to follow Katie's recipes without any problem and with good results. Sometimes a recipe is a little open-ended, as Katie says, "No one tells you how much pizza sauce to put on a pizza... right?" Ummm, I am that person who gives pizza sauce measurements in my pizza recipes! ;)

The handy FAQs at the end of each recipe stretch the recipes to 2+ pages in length, but will leave you confident that you're on the right track, even with making substitutions or variations on the recipe itself. Smart Sweets is 89 pages in all.

One of the recipes in Smart Sweets is for apple crisp. You can get a FREE download of this recipe here! I had fresh apples from Joshua's parents' tree and made the crock pot apple crisp version of the recipe.

I wasn't sure how apple crisp in the crock pot would turn out, but we all ended up liking it! Of course, it wasn't quite like baked apple crisp. We served it in bowls, with real whipped cream. I liked the spice combination and the topping was soft enough for Joshua to chew. And, it was kinda fun to make a dessert in the crock pot! ;)

Go here to get the FREE apple crisp download, which is an excerpt from Smart Sweets!

Katie is also giving away 5 copies of Smart Sweets to readers here!

How to enter the giveaway (5 winners!):

1. Go here and scroll down to see the table of contents for Smart Sweets.

2. Come back here and leave a comment telling me which recipe looks most interesting to you -- and (if you're not logged in) be sure to include a way for me to contact you if you win!

Giveaway is open from Monday, December 5 through Friday, December 9, 2011.

Five winners will be selected using random.org and announced on Monday, December 12, 2011.

Discount code:

Katie has also generously offered a 25% discount on Smart Sweets! (If you're selected as a winner in the giveaway, you will receive a refund for the ebook you purchased.)

Use this code to receive 25% off your order: Tammy25

This discount code is good now through December 19, 2011.

Full Disclosure:

I received a copy of Smart Sweets for review purposes. I am an affiliate for Katie, which means your purchase helps support both Katie and me as bloggers! :)

We've been trying to go grocery shopping every two weeks, but I've been running out of things! (So, our "every 2 weeks" had been turning into "every 10-12 days".) We promised ourselves that this time we'd make do without whatever we're running out of until a full 14 days has passed.

So last weekend, I bought TWO packages of eggs at Costco because 1 package (5 dozen) has been disappearing long before 2 weeks had passed. Almost on cue, I just started using from that second package today. I'm sure my egg nog cravings have nothing to do with that... ;) I have 2 1/2 gallons of milk left, which I'll try to stretch through the week (I bought 6 gallons last week). And when we do go to Costco next weekend, I'll take pictures and share prices. (I've been meaning to get back to posting my grocery shopping trips!)

Here's our menu for the week ahead:

Monday

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese, cooked peas and carrots, leftover gourmet bean soup

Tuesday

Teriyaki salmon fillets (recipe coming on Wednesday!), rice, cooked green beans (or whatever I can find in the freezer)

Wednesday

My mom's beef vegetable soup, cornmeal crescent rolls (I need better pictures of both of those because they're SO good!!) :)

Thursday

Salmon potato casserole (using leftover salmon), cooked peas and carrots

Friday

Burrito pizza (with a biscuit crust from this recipe), cooked veggies

Saturday

Depends on our plans for that day, but probably something in the slow cooker and leftover (frozen) cornmeal crescent rolls. If we have company, I'll figure out some sides to add to that. :)

Sunday

Grilled pollock (or something with pollock; we have lots to use from our freezer!), beans and rice, steamed broccoli

Baking I want to do this week:

Perfect granola bars
Make-ahead butterhorns -- I've had this recipe 10+ years and finally pulled it out for this week! :)
Homemade soft pretzels -- I have tried 4 different recipes for soft pretzels and am still looking for the perfect result! I found another one that looks promising... :)

Breakfasts:

Regular old oatmeal (x3)
Fruit smoothies (including blackberries from our freezer and homemade kefir) (x2)
Cheese and turkey sausage omelets (x2)

Lunches:

Beans with hot sauce and cheese (I will send this in Joshua's lunches too) or leftovers, bananas

Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu plans! :)

All of my weekly menu plans can be found here.

This isn't my mom's pizza sauce recipe, but then I haven't had access to her bounty of garden-fresh tomatoes since we moved from small town, Ohio to the Seattle area. Whether it's apartment life or the tall trees that now shade most of our yard or the cool climate of the Pacific Northwest, I've been finding excuses to not grow tomatoes or even get out to buy tomatoes to make my own pizza sauce.

Now, I think it's totally fine to not make homemade pizza sauce... if you like the stuff from the store... which I don't really.

Yet I get these weird mental blocks where I feel like I just can't do something even when I've done it before and I know I could... if I would. Making pies has always been that challenge for me.

Recently, it's been my homemade wheat bread. I know, really! Me, the queen of homemade bread. I don't like bread from the store at all, but the last time I made my 100% whole wheat bread it flopped. Again. Seattle weather doesn't seem to be a friend to 100% whole wheat bread.

I'm going to try again, after I convince myself it will be okay and probably even turn out great. I can do this, I can do this... (Anyone else in the PNW have problems with 100% whole wheat bread??)

So back to the sauce. I finally pulled out an old recipe from a not-old friend, Sheri. (She's been mentioned here before; this post has links to some of my recipes that were from Sheri or created by Sheri!)

I hadn't made her chunky pizza sauce in 8+ years, but I made it again last month. It's actually easy to make. How could I think cooking from the pantry would be difficult, exactly? I don't know. ;)

At any rate, I'm hopefully pushing through that "can't make pizza sauce without my mom" issue, especially since I got organic canned tomatoes buy-one-get-one-free at Costco last month. And since homemade pizza sauce is just so good. :)

Have you encountered any cooking-related mental blocks lately? Dishes don't count. ;)

I do not normally like enchiladas very well. Not "real" ones, anyway.

Joshua's mom makes an enchilada casserole that's really tasty, but it involves flour tortillas and cream of chicken soup. Delicious!

My little sister Amy has her own version of enchiladas that are topped with things like shredded lettuce and tomatoes, filling that includes cream cheese, and "enchilada sauce" that's actually picante sauce. Again, it's delicious! But not really "enchiladas", you know?

Here are two reasons why I hate most "real" enchiladas:

#1. They're too hot. I can't eat them without drowning them in sour cream first!

#2. The corn tortillas taste raw to me. I love corn tortillas and prefer them over flour tortillas for tacos, but I don't like them when they taste raw.

I set out to create real enchiladas that we would all enjoy, with mostly healthy ingredients. Enchiladas that I would want to eat plain, regardless of the toppings like sour cream. Enchiladas that are affordable. Enchiladas that would use some of the corn tortillas in my fridge since Joshua can't really chew tacos very well right now. ;)

And to start, I needed enchilada sauce. I modified a recipe from a Vitamix cookbook. Guys, this enchilada sauce is awesome! I mean, it actually tastes good. And it has a flavor other than "hot". (If you want more "hot", just add some cayenne.)

Chili powder is one of the main ingredients in homemade enchilada sauce. I get my chili powder in a big bag at a bulk food store, so it wasn't a problem to whisk up this sauce.

And then make even more, because it's just so good and I'm craving enchiladas AGAIN. (Thank you, pregnancy!) I had no idea it was so simple to make homemade enchilada sauce or that it would be so good!

Next, I needed to tackle the "raw corn tortillas" issue I have with enchiladas. I'm not into frying and didn't want the bother of frying them in oil like Pioneer Woman's recipe. (Plus, that's a lot of extra calories.)

Instead, I decided to dry-fry them using my cast iron skillet and another saucepan on top. Remember my kitchen tip about my new favorite way to cook corn tortillas? It really is my favorite way to get hot, cooked, SOFT corn tortillas! :)

The resulting enchiladas were perfect. I loved them!

Joshua said "Wow, these are actually good. I'm glad I didn't tell you what I was thinking when you said you were making enchiladas for dinner." (!!!)

The kids all enjoyed them, too. When I made beef enchiladas again for lunch on the weekend, everyone was excited!

I'm positive it was the combination of my homemade enchilada sauce, cooked corn tortillas, and my homemade refried beans inside.

I'm thinking this is one of the cheaper, easier meals I can make, especially since I cook big batches of ground beef and put the extras in the freezer to pull out for quick meals. I'm also going to experiment with freezing the ready-made dish of enchiladas for an easy freezer meal. And, I'm going to experiment with meatless enchiladas (beans and cheese only). That sounds about perfect to me!

Do you like enchiladas? :)