Washing Dishes by Hand

Keep a bar of soap on the sink edge for those times you only have a few dishes to wash. Then you can just rub your scrub brush on the soap, and it will be the perfect amount for what you're washing. If you do this, you won't run out of liquid soap for large loads as quickly.

Pancake Mix

These pancakes are delicious enough to eat without syrup. Here's the batter ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/4 cup milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons melted butter

Organizing Office Supplies

I got this idea on Hints from Helouise. Use your empty vitamin bottles to store things like thumb tacks, rubber bands, and paper clips. If you have little ones that put these things in their mouths, they have a safety cap on to prevent them from opening.

Fancy Soap

Since Macy's was giving away free cosmetics as their punishment for over-charging customers, Dylan went and brought me back some 'Euphoria' body wash. We try not to use soap with harsh perfumes and chemicals like that when we take baths. So, I'm using it to clean the house.
I put it on the scrub brush when I clean the toilet bowl, and on the mop when I clean the floors. As Fly Lady would say: "Soap is soap".
Now, our house smells so 'Euphoric'.
Thanks Dylan!

Hybrid Home-made Jarred Salsa

I always think store-bought salsa just tastes like spicy tomatoes. However, you might not feel like starting from scratch with making your own.
Today, I bought a jar of Newman's Own salsa, with a fresh bunch of cilantro, and one onion.
I chopped up the cilantro and onion, and mixed it with the salsa.
It tastes home-made, but takes about half the time.

An Intuitive Home

I'm coming to realize that part of a wife's job is to make her home at peace with her husband. This is a balance of making it intuitive to his habits, and giving him the proper tasks with the proper reward for performing them.

Another important principle is that a good wife must know the difference between female tasks and male tasks. You treat these tasks as differently as you would treat a female or a male person.

Each household is different as what would be called such.

In general, female tasks include:
Cleaning up behind someone (i.e. picking up shoes, throwing the teabag in the trash)
Child and Pet Care
Ridding the home of offensive smells (esp. when scrubbing is involved)
Chores that distress the husband psychologically (changing diapers, cleaning toilet, kitty litter)
Any task that requires you to be on hands and knees

Male tasks can vary greatly as long as doing the chore meets the following criteria:
Must elicit praise.
Preferably outside (so neighbors see he's doing a chore)
Must seem like it requires superior strength to perform (taking trash out, opening jars, etc...)

A wife whose husband supports her enough to be able to stay at home should be able to do almost all of the female tasks. However, if she has an extra burden, or added responsibilities on top of her home-making, delegation of some of these tasks will need to be made.

Asking a husband to perform a male task is relatively simple. The words must convey a dependence on the husband, as well as being favorably impressed with his abilities.

The following is a sample question that conveys these two points. Simply fill in the parenthesis with the appropriate word.

"I need you to (male task to be performed) because you're so (strong, skilled, smart)"

Notice the first thing the husband will hear in this sentence is "I need you". The last thing he hears is "You're so (strong, skilled, smart)".

With this wording, it makes the task he needs to perform seem as nothing to him. Following up his performance with lavish praise and loving treatment (especially physical) will encourage him to look forward to doing more tasks for you in the future. He may even do them without you asking him. It is a wife's duty to always recognize what a husband does around the house, and praise him accordingly.

The biggest challenge is to ask a husband to do a female task. Ideally, a house-wife would rarely need to do this. Unfortunately, circumstances such as chronic health problems, care-taking outside the home, or both partners being required to work full time, demand a delegation of the domestic tasks to the husband as well.

This is where making your home intuitive to your husband habits a real asset. Watch your husbands habits carefully, and switch things around so he only needs to make the smallest change to keep things orderly.

For example: does he throw his keys, pocket change and receipts on a table when he gets home? Set up a money jar there, and a key holder near the table. Then, you will only have to take care of the trash he's kept in his pockets. He will most likely respond to a request to put the items in the correct spot, since it's really not much different than what he was doing before.

Does he leave his clothes on the bathroom floor? Keep a hamper in the bathroom and your problem is solved. Even if he forgets to place his clothes in there, it will be easy for you to clean up.

Domesticity can be a joy when a good wife learns the proper way to put her husband to work, and to make the home intuitive to him. A peaceful house makes a peaceful family.

French Onion Soup

It's surprising how many things you can come up with for dinner when you're running out of groceries. I had a few small potatoes left, some onions that were going to go bad soon, and a bunch of Herbalife soup mix samples. So I made the above.

Slice up potatoes and throw in crock pot
Season to taste (s&p, garlic, dried onions)
Slice up onions and add to pot
Since I had them, I mixed up about 8 packs of soup mix (each contains about 12g protein) with hot water (about 32 oz) You can use regular chicken broth.
Pour it in the pot and stir.

After an hour of cooking on high (depending on how hard the potatoes) it's ready to serve.
Shred up some romano or other kind of cheese and put a thick layer of it on top.

Since I used protein soup mix for mine, it's like a meatless dinner that will fill you up.

Olive Tapenade

Trader Joe's sells their own. It's really good, but it's in such a tiny jar. So I decided to make my own with suitable portions.

You can chop up the following ingredients just like you're making salsa.

Green Olives
Diced Tomatoes
Roasted Pepper
Pickles
Minced Garlic
Salt & Pepper

Since I happened to have it in my fridge, I also chopped up and added:
Capers
Pickled Grape leaves

Add it to sandwiches, or crackers

Salmon and Potatoes

You'll have to use your own cooking experience for the details on this one. In parenthesis is what I personally did, and it turned out pretty good.

Preheat oven to (350)
Slice potatoes and add to bottom of 9x9 pan
Season to taste (salt, pepper, garlic)
Chop up onions and cover potatoes
Splash it with Braggs Liquid Aminos
Drizzle with olive oil
Cover with a handful of chopped fresh parsley
Place salmon filets on top
Season to taste (mine was preseasoned from TJ's)
Bake for 20-30 minutes

Tortilla Land

My friend Alejandra gave me a bag of 100 corn tortillas. So I'm trying to use them up. So far, I make cheese quesadillas, and a dessert thing.

Cheese quesadillas are easy: Melt butter in a pan, place one tortilla on pan. Sprinkle with cheese, put another tortilla on top. Flip over when it's browned, and serve.

If anyone can tell me the name of this dessert thing from how I describe it, that would be helpful. I know I'm not the first person to make this up:

Fry a tortilla in butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon, drizzle with honey, and serve.