$.16 for Foaming Hand Soap!!!!!

 

I wanted to try out making my own foaming hand soap to see if I would save money.  I also wanted to replace using plastic in favor of easily recyclable glass.  And eventually, I decided to make it in a scent that I love.

Here is the recipe in case you don't want to read my jibber jabber.

FOAMING SOAP RECIPE

3 parts water

1 part of your favorite liquid soap or body wash (NOT foaming soap)

Directions:  Fill measuring cup to line with water, then add soap (putting soap first then water will make it foam), stir until mixed, pour in foam dispenser.

MATH SKILLS... if you're confused about 3 parts to 1 part, also called a 3:1 (three to one) ratio, here is an explanation.  Take the total of how many ounces or mL you want to make and divide by four.  That number is your 1 part.  Take that number and multiply by three, and you get the three parts.  It's like taking a pizza divided into four slices, three getting pepperoni (3 parts) and one getting sausage (1 part).  Another way to do it is 75% water and 25% soap.

RECIPE - Delicious InstantPot Beef Stew

This recipe is a lot for a 6 quart Instant Pot, and may overfill it.  So you may consider reducing some of the ingredients (like the vegies), precooking the vegies, or using a larger pot.

I looked over a recipe for short rib beef stew and then made this up on the fly. So this is not necessarily for beginners who need it all planned out.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 lbs stew meat
• 2 tbsp better than bouillon beef
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup sherry
• 1 cup red wine
• 3 large red potatoes (1.5-2" chunks)
• 8 oz baby carrots (whole)
• 16 oz baby bella mushrooms halved or quartered
• 2 large onions (chunked)
• 1.5 tsp thyme leaves
• 1 tsp ground sage
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Toss meat in flour.
2. Either in the Instant Pot or a separate pan, pan sear the beef in small batches, 2-3 minutes tossing about halfway through, to brown some of the sides.  You should still see pink, do not cook all the way through.  Remove beef and place in Instant Pot.
3. If you wish to deepen the flavor you can sauté the onions until they are slightly translucent or the mushrooms (this will actually reduce the amount of water and make more room in the Instant Pot.
4. Add all ingredients to the Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for 60 min. Salt and pepper to taste.

Notes

I used cooking wine, which is already salty, so I didn't add any salt and it needed quite a bit for my taste.

There are three ways to thicken the broth and I describe the flour method above:

1) toss beef in 1/4 cup flour before pan searing

2) add 3-4 tbsp of corn starch to enough cold water to dissolve it and stir in after cooking (add more if not thick enough, this way keeps the broth more transparent, however, after reheating it will not stay thickened)

3) mash up some of the potatoes after cooking.