Magic Lotion Bars

Last week I had a huge reaction to something I ate, compounded with being at work and using the awful gloves that we have at work. (OK, so they probably aren't AWFUL for the general people, but for me, I react to them on the best of days.) The eczema was just horrible. By far the worst I have ever experienced. I had been doing research on natural remedies, as I am not one for taking medications, especially corticosteroids. One of the things I discovered was coconut oil is amazing for eczema. I started to use that and it cleared up my eczema relatively quickly considering I wasn't using steroids. However, with this reaction that I had, the coconut oil wasn't able to penetrate through the rough disgusting rash. Despite my constant slathering of the oil, it just wasn't doing the trick this time. So it was back to the drawing board. Enter the miracle of Shea Butter! I was at a store where I found a sample of pure shea butter, put it on my hands and wow! It actually penetrated through and softened my hands up a tiny bit, enough for me to start working it out with the coconut oil that I had. Lucky for me a few weeks before this I had ordered shea butter and beeswax to try out lotion bars that I had discovered on One Good Thing By Jillee's Blog. It is the recipe for MadeON's Hard Lotion Bars. I've seen a few different recipe's for lotion bars, however this is the recipe I decided sounded the best. Shea butter and coconut oil are touted to be amazing for eczema and dry sensitive skin. Both of which I am a victim of. On day 6 of dealing with this reaction, I came home from work to find my package from Mountain Rose Herbs sitting on my door step! I was so excited that I immediately made it. OK, that's a lie, I immediately OPENED the box, looked at all my fun purchases, then proceeded to have a nap. AFTER the nap I put the lotion bar ingredients into action!

Ingredients: (equal parts)
-shea butter
-coconut oil
-beeswax
If you want harder bars, add more beeswax, softer add more coconut oil. If they are too greasy you have too much coconut oil, if too sticky you have too much shea butter... Just re melt and adjust!
That's it! Easy right? First I want to talk a tiny bit about what kinds of ingredients you want to use. Most important? UNREFINED! I can't emphasize enough how you need to spend a tiny bit more and buy unrefined cold pressed product. If you buy refined shea butter or coconut oil all the miracle healing elements of the shea and coconut oil is killed. The high heat that they expose it to will decimate any healing properties, meaning your lotion bars will not be as fabulous and miraculous. They will still be chemical free (yay!) however they will just be lotion, not magical lotion. Yes magical. So please please please buy unrefined! I purchased my beeswax and my shea from Mountain Rose Herbs, and the coconut oil is from my fav local health food store Oliver's Health.

First, you need to construct a double boiler. When baking, my double boiler is a pot of water with a Pyrex bowl on top. I was wary of using a baking bowl because I don't trust my ability to clean up the bowl after. So I opted for an extra Pyrex liquid measure, the bonus of this is that i was able to pour the mixture easily into the molds of choice.

I have a flimsy little kitchen scale that I used to measure out all my ingredients. For easy transfer and clean up I placed a piece of parchment paper over the scale before I measured it out.
 I did the melting in three steps, melting first the beeswax, which has a melting point of around 145*F  (about 63*C). When the beeswax is all but melted, I add in the shea butter, which has a melting point of around 90*F (32*C). After the shea is almost completely melted I add in the coconut oil which has a fairly low melting point of 76*F or 24*C. Using a bamboo skewer to stir everything up, it usually melts quite quickly (I made an ounce of each ingredient and it melted within 4-5 minutes).
Then take the Pyrex out of the water and dry the outside off, and pour into molds. (For lip gloss tubes, fill halfway, let harden a bit and then fill up to the top) Toss into the freezer or fridge until it hardens completely (about 30 minutes in the freezer). Once hard, they should easily come out of the mold. Now you have magic. Because of the low melting point of the shea butter and the coconut oil (both well below the body's natural temperature) when you rub the bar over your skin a thin layer of lotion will coat your skin. Just rub it in a tiny bit and the beeswax will seal that moisture into your skin. That's the magic! I put it on my angry red hands a few times that night and when I woke up they were much much happier. When I went to work the next day I took it with me and used it throughout the shift. Instead of coming home with hands that were red, raw and painful, I came home with fabulous hands! Its been 3 blissful days since I made the bars and I have almost perfectly healed hands. I'm sure the steroids would have cleared this up a lot quicker, however I am just not comfortable continuing steroid use now that I've actually researched it a bit! So I will continue to use my magical lotion bars and hopefully I will be able to prevent any flare ups. Lucky for me my manager agreed to order special gloves for me at work as well. I now have fabulous green gloves that are lined with organic aloe. I feel so special :) No more tingly painful hands when I put on gloves.

My original batch made 6 little cubes of lotion, as well as one circular lotion bar. I have given away all my little cubes for people to try and everyone LOVES them. As a nurse you have to wash your hands a million times a day with harsh antimicrobial soap, then sanitize your hands with an alcohol spray a billion times a day. They've formulated these to be as moisturizing as possible but let's face it. It's not enough. With these lotion bars, they protect your hands while you wash over and over and over again!

I made a second batch today,  with 2 oz of each ingredient. I made a few apples, cubes, large circles, a couple lip balms, and i poured some into a 1/2 ounce tin. This is all that's left after my step mom stopped by and I gave her a few tidbits to take home to the family to try out. LOVE!

Spicy Hummus

Falafels and Hummus go well together. They go fantastically together. In fact, every time I make falafels, I have to make hummus.

Normally I make the hummus in my Vita-mix, this time I wanted to test out my new food processors 4 cup mini bowl and blade. It did not work as well I would have liked, so I ended up scooping it into my vitamix and finishing the job. Maybe if I used tahini instead of raw sesame seeds the food processor would work better, but as I have a Vitamix and sesame seeds, I will continue to use the Vitamix for this recipe, which I just so happened to get out of the Vitamix recipe book, and altered just a bit.

4 cup mini bowl

Spicy Hummus

NOT the right consistency

2 cups chickpeas
1/2 cup raw sesame seeds
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
3-4 cloves garlic
Italian seasoning
3 dried red peppers (spicy!) adjust as per your taste in heat

Place all the ingredients in the Vita-mix in order, turn on the vitamix to variable speed 1, then turn the dial to full and flip the switch to High. Run the blender for 1 minute, make sure you use the tamper to push it all into the blades.

Trusty Vitamix 

The RIGHT consistency

Easy with the Vita-mix. I found the food processor didn't grind up the sesame seeds as well as required, and the texture wasn't quite smooth. With the Vitamix, I can get it to the perfect consistency. Can I just say I LOVE HUMMUS? I cut my pita in half, spread on a healthy serving of hummus and threw in a few falafels. Then I cut the rest of the pita into wedges and dipped them in hummus. So good.

Not a fabulous picture, but super delicious

Baked Falafel

A couple of years ago I had never tried a falafel. I tend to avoid deep fried foods, but I had heard nothing  but good things about the falafel. So I set out to find out if it were possible to bake these little balls of deliciousness into something healthy. I still have yet to try an actual fried falafel, however these little cookies are delicious.

The main part of the falafel is the chickpea. You can buy them in dried form or in a can. I am not a huge fan of anything canned, as a lot of cans are lined with BPA. So I buy them dried and soak them over night. By soaking them you are able to fully rinse them and they will be easier to digest.  I started by tossing 1.5 c dried chickpeas into my 8 cup measuring cup, and filled it with water, the next morning they'd more than doubled their size. I've left them in the fridge for a couple days before I remember that I wanted to make hummus or falafels.

Baked Falafels

2 cups chickpeas

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

3 Tbsp parsley

1 Tbsp cilantro

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

2 Tbsp whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp olive oil

Usually I make my falafels in my Vita-mix, however I just bought a new Kitchenaid 13 cup food processor and I was anxious to try her out. First off, let me tell you. She. Is. HUGE. I believe she will be called Big Bertha. I tossed in the chickpeas, as well as a tablespoon of chia seeds, and away went Big Bertha. Once they were ground up I tossed in the rest of the ingredients. All of them, in no particular order.

 Once it was well mixed I pulled out one of my cookie scoops and scooped onto a baking stone. You don't have to use a baking stone, however I found that I tend to make something more if I can be a little bit lazy. The baking stone allows me to be a little bit lazy because I don't have to flip these little bad boys. Once I'd scooped out all my falafels onto the baking sheet (odd number because I wasn't super vigilant about ensuring they were all the same size). Then I squished them down so they were a bit flat. And baked them for 30 minutes at 375. (flip them at 15 minutes if not using a baking stone)

Et voila! Healthy, fibre rich, delicious falafel cookies!! Did I mention delicious?? I made a small batch of spicy hummus, smeared it on a whole wheat pita, tossed a few in, and was in heaven! 

Repurposed Candle Jars

My challenged attempt at
the freeze method

Once again, a Pinterest post has caught my attention. And as luck would have it I had 2 candles that were almost out. I tend to flip flop between Scentsy and between Bath and Body Works candles. Presently I'm on the candle kick, so I have a few laying around. So I burned the rest of the candle out and then tossed it into my freezer, where I left it for a couple days. When I took it out I was hoping it would be easy to slide out or chisel free... it wasn't. I was actually afraid that I might break the frozen glass, and as my hands have gone through enough at work, I didn't think I needed to add giant gash to the list. So I set out to discover a different way to easily clean out my jar.

Lava Lamp!!

What I discovered was actually pretty cool. I poured boiling water into the candle jar. And voila, I had my very own mini lava lamp! As the boiling water melted the wax, it bubbled up to the surface and in my pictures it actually looks like its glowing! It didn't take too long for it all to melt and float up to the top. I then tossed it in the fridge for it to cool down. Theory behind cooling it down, the water stays below and the wax will harden up top and be easier to get out. True to my lack of patience, I didn't let it harden enough so I just scooped it all up with my finger, and tossed it in a garbage bag. I read somewhere that you could save the wax and use it in your Scentsy warmers... I think that's awesome, if you have the patience to let it harden enough to do that. Clearly I did not.

let it harden!

After the wax was all but out I grabbed the remaining wicks, tossed them and then set out to clean up the jar. First I used paper towel so my cloths didn't get all waxy. I got as much residue off as I could. Then I added a bit of white vinegar to the jar, swooshed it around and then wiped it clean. It got the rest of the waxy film off the glass. Then I washed it in dish soap, dried it and polished it up. To get the big sticker off the bottom I simply soaked it in water and then used a tiny bit of coconut oil and the glue goo was gone.

Sparkling Clean!

Now I have a new glass jar that I can use in my bathroom, or perhaps I'll toss some coffee beans in the jar, and use it as my makeup brush holder... The possibilities...