Weekend Projects

Late summer harvest

Fall's cooler temperatures have arrived and the leaves are starting to turn.  Our cool, rainy weather makes me want to nest and create comforting foods that warm up the kitchen and waft yummy smells through the house.  Here are a couple of the projects that I worked on this weekend.

Homemade Natural Whipped Shea Butter

A friend sent me this link to this how-to video to make your own whipped shea butter some time ago when we were looking for more natural alternatives to a pricey hair creme we both had been using.  This quick recipe uses all natural ingredients and comes together in about 10 minutes. I switched out the olive oil for Aura Glow almond scent for this batch.  You can add whatever essential oils you like to make a signature scent.  I added a little vanilla to go along with the almond scent already in the oil.  (When I open up the little jar I keep at my desk at the office, I often get comments that the almond and vanilla combination reminds people of someone baking cookies..not a bad thing in my book.)

Ingredients for whipped shea butter

I use this as a hand and body lotion as well as a hair moisturizer.  Since I started making this, I  no longer buy lotions which always seem to have ingredients I can't pronounce.   It looks butter cream frosting after a few minutes in the food processor.  The one pound tub of shea butter whipped up to fill two of the one pound sized containers and can be stored at room temperature.

Whipped shea butter

Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls

The cool weather today prompted me to bake bread. My favorite recipe makes great sandwich buns, hot dog rolls or even a nice loaf of bread for slicing.  I substituted about 3/4 cup of the flour with some course ground wheat to give a chewy texture and substituted another 2 cups of whole wheat flour for 2 cups of the bread flour. Using the whole wheat flour does make the rolls a little more dense but they are still pretty fluffy and I think that's a reasonable trade-off for getting some additional fiber,   I dusted the bottom of the rolls with course ground corn meal to prevent them from  sticking to the baking sheet and add a little crunch.  These are perfect paired with Farmhouse Veggie Burgers which I featured in a previous post and freeze well for later use.   These rolls don't take too much effort for a healthy addition to your menus and are economical at about 1/3 the cost of good quality bakery sandwich rolls.

I hope you give both of these recipes a try.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Late summer flowers in a neighborhood garden