Life in Lape Haven

Tag - Tried It Tuesday

Tried It Tuesday: Sweet Vinegar Slaw

May 31, 2016
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Sweet Vinegar Slaw - Life in Lape Haven. A yummy recipe for a vinegar-based slaw that is always a summer hit. Great side dish for barbecue and easy to make.

When Brad and I were first married, our church had a picnic once a month in the summertime, which meant that as a newlywed who was still building her recipe repertoire, at first, I didn’t have a lot of ideas for what to take each time. After all, there’s a bit of a difference between cooking for two and cooking for a crowd.

After a couple of summers of taking things like fresh fruit salads, cookies, or random recipes, I was inspired by a side dish at a new local barbecue place, a side dish that I loved and knew I could recreate or at least get pretty close to: Sweet Vinegar Slaw.

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: Sweet Vinegar Slaw. A yummy recipe for a vinegar-based slaw that is always a summer hit. Great side dish for barbecue and easy to make.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of traditional coleslaw. I mean, it’s okay with your bucket of fried chicken and all, but I could take it or leave it.

However, when I first tasted this vinegar-based slaw at the barbecue restaurant, I was hooked. It wasn’t like the creamy, mayonnaise-y taste of regular coleslaw, but rather a sweet, sour, tangy, crunchy yumminess that is especially awesome with barbecue ANYTHING.  

So, I went home, hit up Google, and found several recipes that seemed to mimic the slaw I’d had.

I honestly don’t remember where I came across the recipe that I finally made (and I tried looking it up), but it’s been written in my little recipe journal for several years. It’s a definite go-to recipe, especially in the summer.


From the first time I made it to every time since, this slaw has been a hit. It’s great for potlucks, picnics, and family gatherings, and unlike creamy coleslaws, you don’t have to worry too much about this in the summer heat. The vinegar and sugar won’t spoil as easily as mayonnaise. Plus, this recipe goes a long way.

While it’s a good side for just about anything, we LOVE this on barbecue pulled pork sandwiches. It’s a tasty little culinary match made in heaven. 🙂

So, to get your summer started off right, here’s how I make Sweet Vinegar Slaw. Enjoy!

 

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Tried It Tuesday: Oven Roasted Chicken

May 17, 2016
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Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: Oven Roasted Chicken. Delicious, juicy chicken is easy to make when you roast it in the oven. Seasoned simply with rosemary , thyme, salt, & pepper, cooking the chicken at a high temperature creates a crispy skin and juicy, flavorful chicken. Yum!

I like to cook for my family, but I also like to cook enough so that I don’t HAVE to cook every single day. I like having leftovers that I can heat up in just a few minutes, and boom – dinner! When my boys were even smaller, I could pretty much make any dish go for at least two meals, but now, not so much. (I KNOW – they are only 3 & 5…I don’t even want to think about when they are teenagers.)

In the winter time, I have it fairly easy because I can make soups and chili that last us at least two or three days. I can divide them up, too, and freeze them so we aren’t literally eating them for three days in a row.

Warmer months are a little trickier, but I have found one thing that is versatile enough that I can stretch it out for several meals in either summer or winter: a whole chicken.

Whether we eat it just as it was cooked, or I debone it and use the meat to make chicken pot pie, barbecue chicken sandwiches, chicken tacos, or any number of chicken dishes, it feeds us well for a few days.

I used to cook it on the stove top, like my mom always did, bringing it to a boil and then cooking it low and slow all morning, and I still do it like this when I want a bit more stock for my dish, such as chicken and dumplings or chicken and noodles.

However, my favorite way to cook a chicken now is to oven roast it because it produces a more flavorful, moist meat, and the best method/recipe that I’ve found was one that I came across last year sometime, where they cooked it at 450 degrees – THE WHOLE TIME. (Most oven-roasted chicken directions say to heat your oven to 350).

I know you could easily pick up a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store deli, but honestly, it’s sooo easy to roast your own, with your own seasonings, that I would only buy one in a pinch.

Lisa at My Own Sweet Thyme has a yummy sounding recipe for Herb Roasted Chicken, which is where I got my cooking directions. I haven’t actually tried her recipe as a whole, though.

My recipe is less precise, with some salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and olive oil being dashed over the chicken in a roasting pan and cooked about an hour, uncovered, at 450 (until the thickest part of the chicken is at least 165 degrees.)

Even though I don’t always have the exact same measurements on my ingredients, it always comes out delicious with crispy skin and juicy, flavorful chicken.

Here’s how I make my oven-roasted chicken:

 

Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Stove Top Macaroni and Cheese

May 10, 2016
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Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Stove Top Macaroni & Cheese. This quick, easy, delicious homemade mac and cheese on your stove top is a crowd pleaser and a family favorite. Even the pickiest of picky eaters will love it! It takes about the same amount of time to make as the boxed kind, but it tastes so much better!

Every mom needs a go-to on those days when her child is, or children are, being extra picky about eating.

Personally, I never really had to worry much with Elijah. He’s always been a good eater. He loves his veggies and fruits, and he’ll try pretty much anything. He may not like it, but he’ll try it.

Josiah…not so much. While he’s not horrible, he has his moments. He’ll like something one time and eat it up, then decide when I make it again, that no, he doesn’t like that at all.

However, I have a recipe for something that no one in our house ever turns down, not even Josiah.

But then again, who doesn’t love homemade stove top macaroni and cheese?

Around here, I’ve been making this super easy recipe for about 3 years, ever since I first saw Alton Brown make this mac and cheese on his stove on a rerun of Good Eats (We love that show!). Up to that point, macaroni and cheese was a rare dish in our meals because I just didn’t want to buy it (the orange powder just kind of …uhhh). However, seeing how quickly I could make REAL mac and cheese from scratch – just about the same amount of time it takes to make it from the box – I was sold.

Made with a handful of ingredients that I generally have on hand all the time, this recipe also makes enough that I usually have some left over for another meal, such as lunch for Josiah and me.

So, I’m saving time, money, and feeding my family a little bit healthier (it’s still pasta with butter & lots of cheese, so…).

Here is Alton’s original macaroni and cheese recipe (he also has a recipe for an oven-baked mac and cheese, too, if you follow the “episode” link.)

Here is how I make homemade macaroni and cheese on the stove top.
This is one of my boys' favorites.

Tried It Tuesday: Easy Beef Stroganoff

May 3, 2016
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Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: Easy Beef Stroganoff. This quick, easy recipe for Beef Stroganoff has become a favorite of my whole family. Plus you can make the sauce ahead & freeze it to make an extra fast, tasty dinner.

Earlier this year, I was looking for something new to make for dinner. Tired of the usual standbys, I went searching for inspiration on Pinterest, and I came across a fairly easy-looking recipe for which I had enough of the ingredients in my pantry or refrigerator that I could try it out.

Knowing that my guys all love pasta, I decided to see how they liked Beef Stroganoff, something that I knew my two little boys had never had. It was a bit of a gamble since they can have their picky-eater moments, but it turned out to be worth the risk because everyone loved it. This quick, tasty dish has since become a regular menu item in our house, one that my boys eat right up.

The recipe I started with is Creamy Beef Stroganoff from Cooking with K, but of course, as usual, I’ve tweaked it based on what I have on hand and our family’s tastes.

This is a really simple, throw-it-together kind of a meal, and according to the original recipe, you can make the sauce (minus the sour cream) and freeze it, which would make it an even quicker dinner if you prepped ahead. I haven’t tried this yet. I do, however, usually buy 3 or more pounds of ground beef, and brown and freeze it in 1-pound portions, so I have that ready to go. (This is great for quick sloppy joes, spaghetti, cheeseburger soup, or even this beef stroganoff.)

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: Easy Beef Stroganoff. This quick, easy recipe for Beef Stroganoff has become a favorite of my whole family. Plus you can make the sauce ahead & freeze it to make an extra fast, tasty dinner.

Some of the changes I have made to the recipe include using a little less ground beef and onion, not using any green peppers, adding more evaporated milk, and using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. It’s also nice to jazz it up with fresh mushrooms or heavy cream instead of evaporated milk.

It might not be the prettiest dish, but it is definitely a delicious one. 🙂

Here’s my version of an Easy Beef Stroganoff. Enjoy!

 

Tried It Tuesday: How to Get Grass Stains Out of Clothes

April 26, 2016
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Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday - How to Get Grass Stains Out of Clothes. Two active little boys and spring mean that grass stains are showing up on lots of the clothes in my laundry. I have found a fairly easy way to get grass stains out of their jeans and clothing, without soaking the grass stained garments for hours.

Less than a month ago, I posted about finding a solution for getting grease stains out of my boys’ clothes, and at the end of the blog, since I’ve also shared how I get dry erase marker out of my kindergartener’s jeans and how I found a simple way to remove silly putty from fabric, I said, “I wonder what new stain my little boys will find for me to become an expert on next…”

Well, it didn’t take long. In fact, I actually should have seen this one coming. I mean, I’m a mom of two active, energetic, outdoors-loving little boys.

With spring’s arrival, I should have known it was inevitable.

Bring on the grass stains.

Yep, no sooner had our grass turned from yucky dead brown to bright, newly-sprouted green, than those infamous streaks of green showed up on clothes all through my laundry baskets.

A couple of days after we set up the boys’ new-to-us wooden swing set, I had 5 pairs of grass-stained jeans to tackle.

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday - How to Get Grass Stains Out of Clothes. Two active little boys and spring mean that grass stains are showing up on lots of the clothes in my laundry. I have found a fairly easy way to get grass stains out of their jeans and clothing, without soaking the grass stained garments for hours.

Knowing that I was staring at my summer laundry nemesis that day, I went straight to two sources as I searched for help in heading off this stain epidemic:

Pinterest and my mother.

While I knew Pinterest holds all kinds of solutions for pretty much every household problem ever, I also knew that my mom had dealt with her share of grass stains, thanks to my two busy, athletic brothers, both of whom played football.

Pinterest’s solutions included using rubbing alcohol or hair spray as a solvent on the stain, and a lot of pre-treating, scrubbing, soaking, and rewashing. Hmmm.

Mom’s answer: “For the boys’ football pants, I just used laundry detergent to pre-treat, then scrubbed it well, and washed the clothes in cold water. If it didn’t come out, I washed it again. If it’s white, you can bleach it, also.”

(I imagine that if the clothing were white, you could also set it out in the sun, and let the sun help you bleach it out, too, if you wanted, like you do with cloth diapers.)

Thankfully, I don’t have boys ruining football pants, yet. I just have tumble-bumble boys sliding around the grass on the knees of their jeans. 🙂

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday - How to Get Grass Stains Out of Clothes. Two active little boys and spring mean that grass stains are showing up on lots of the clothes in my laundry. I have found a fairly easy way to get grass stains out of their jeans and clothing, without soaking the grass stained garments for hours.

So, I combined the answers and tried it out on those five pair of jeans, one of which had a grass stain that had *gasp & sigh* ALREADY GONE THROUGH THE DRYER! Ugh.  Like all stains, grass stains are best taken care of as soon as possible!

I didn’t hold out much hope for that rogue pair of pants, but the other four, I could fix them, right?

Step 1

I started out with my new standby solvent – hand sanitizer. It works for the dry erase marker & the silly putty, and some of the solutions I found for grass stains mentioned using alcohol, so I applied some of the gel and rather than scour it with my “cleaning toothbrush,” I used my fingernails to kind of scratch at the stain. I had read that you wanted to lift the stain out. Okay.

Step 2

I sprayed each stain with Spray’N’Wash Pre-treater (you can use try whatever stain treater you have on hand) and scrubbed it in, lightly, with my cleaning toothbrush.

Step 3

Each stain then also received a good dollop of laundry detergent. In my researching, it said to use detergent with enzymes. My detergent doesn’t have enzymes, but I used it anyway. I scrubbed that in.

Step 4

I waited about 30 minutes or so before I washed the garments in cold water. I had some other jeans that needed stain treated for those lovely dry erase marker stains, so that’s what I spent some of my “waiting” time doing. Then I threw all the jeans into the washer.

Step 5

DON’T PUT THEM IN THE DRYER!!!! I looked over the clothing to see if the stains were gone. I let them all air dry until I could really tell if there was any staining left. While they did look better, I wanted them completely stain-free.

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday - How to Get Grass Stains Out of Clothes. Two active little boys and spring mean that grass stains are showing up on lots of the clothes in my laundry. I have found a fairly easy way to get grass stains out of their jeans and clothing, without soaking the grass stained garments for hours.

Step 6

If they aren’t clean enough, you can repeat all the steps over again. Or not. I just used a little more pre-treater and scrubbing, let it sit a few minutes, and washed them again in cold water. This time when they came out, I was happy. All of the pants, except the ones that I had put through the dryer accidentally, came out free of staining. The dried-in pair didn’t come out all the way, but it was much, much better.

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday - How to Get Grass Stains Out of Clothes. Two active little boys and spring mean that grass stains are showing up on lots of the clothes in my laundry. I have found a fairly easy way to get grass stains out of their jeans and clothing, without soaking the grass stained garments for hours.

So, there you go – my not-too-difficult way to get grass stains out of clothing.

Since my laundry stain repertoire seems to keep growing, stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll be adding to it soon.

How to Get Grease Stains (even set-in ones) Out of Clothing

A Ridiculously Simple Way to Get Silly Putty Out of Fabric

How to Get Dry Erase Marker Out of Clothing


Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Chocolate Syrup

April 19, 2016
3 Comments
Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Chocolate Syrup. An easy, inexpensive, healthier, and delicious homemade chocolate syrup that will guarantee you'll never need store-bought again. Great for chocolate milk & as an ice cream topping! Yummy.

With spring now in full bloom, my boys want to be outside as much as they can. When I meet Elijah at school at the end of the day, the first words out of his mouth now are, “Can we go to the park?” If that gets turned down for some reason, the next question is, “Can we play outside?”

Knowing those boys have plenty of energy to burn off, I’m more than willing to comply as often as possible. When we come back inside, I have to be ready for their next favorite question, “Can we have a snack?”

Today, the boys are in for a surprise because with their snack they’ll be getting to mix up some chocolate milk with homemade chocolate syrup, which they LOVE.

Life in Lape Haven - Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Chocolate Syrup. An easy, inexpensive, healthier, and delicious homemade chocolate syrup that will guarantee you'll never need store-bought again. Great for chocolate milk & as an ice cream topping! Yummy.

I only make chocolate syrup every so often, not because it’s difficult or expensive (it’s neither), but because if I kept our refrigerator stocked with the syrup, chocolate milk would be all my boys (and husband) would drink. 🙂 When we have it on hand, we also go through a lot more milk, of course!

Besides that, during the colder months of the year, my crew is more about hot chocolate and hot tea. Spring and summer are the months that really call for chocolate milk –  or ice cream with chocolate syrup (Yep, it’s great for that, too.).

I first started making chocolate syrup a few years ago when I saw a recipe for chocolate syrup posted on One Good Thing by Jillee. It looked easy enough, and you know – CHOCOLATE, so I made some.

My husband, who isn’t a huge fan of chocolate but is chocolate milk’s number one fan, was so impressed with how good it was that my first batch was gone really, really, really quickly.

Life in Lape Haven - Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Chocolate Syrup. An easy, inexpensive, healthier, and delicious homemade chocolate syrup that will guarantee you'll never need store-bought again. Great for chocolate milk & as an ice cream topping! Yummy.

I did tweak the recipe, just a bit. Since I love dark chocolate, I always buy both regular cocoa and dark chocolate cocoa. This way I can “darken” any chocolate recipe, even a little bit – brownies, no bakes, chocolate syrup. I do a mix of both varieties of cocoa so that it’s not too strong for the guys, but it’s a bit more chocolatey for me. 🙂

This homemade chocolate syrup is so easy, quick, and inexpensive, not to mention healthier than store-bought syrup, I haven’t actually bought chocolate syrup since!

Instead, I break out this recipe whenever we need a little treat on a warm day.

Here’s how I make Homemade Chocolate Syrup:
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