Homemade Chocolate Syrup - the REAL stuff!

This chocolate syrup is great! It tastes and feels just like Hershey's Artificially Flavored Chocolate Syrup, except better, because it's REAL.

There is NO chocolate in Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, but there *is* a lot of high fructose corn syrup. Two reasons to avoid the stuff (and I used to drink it by the bottle - I was a kid then!).

One reason to like bottled chocolate syrup - the handy bottle! So save it for this recipe!

Now I'm not saying this recipe is healthy by any means, but at least there is real chocolate and a sugar source you can trust. You KNOW what this sugar will do to your body. I am experimenting with other natural sweeteners (honey, molasses), but we still prefer white sugar the best.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients & Instructions:

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup water

Mix those two things in a pan and heat over medium to dissolve.

2 cups pure white cane sugar

Stir in the sugar and boil for 3 minutes. This step is *critical* - use a timer! The full three minutes thickens it up and makes it syrup, not chocolate-sugar water ;)

1/8 tsp salt (we use sea salt)

1/4 tsp vanilla (we use pure organic vanilla extract with bourbon, which boils out)

Remove from heat. Add salt and vanilla. Stir it in thoroughly.

Allow to cool (this is the hardest part - looking at all that chocolate goodness, just sitting there!). It will thicken as it cools.

Use a funnel to pour it into a storage bottle.
Place some ice cream or milk into that saucepan and don't let the remaining chocolate go to waste (I hear-tell that a finger works just as well!)

;)

Gardening 2010 - the beginning - We're Planted!!!!!

At long last, and very much delayed, we are finally planted! We are SO excited!



First we had to get approval from our apartment complex to have a garden on the balcony.

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Then we had to make the gardening plans – ok, we faked this step We rarely plan anything except on the fly.

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We did pick up this book which was promptly plowed through by the voracious new reader in the house – now the in-house expert on gardening of course:
Onions in My Boots – Catholic Heritage Curricula

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We got our bins set up and ordered our seeds… We kept forgetting to get some rocks to use as drainage. Finally managed that one, 3 days *after* the seeds arrived and on our return trip from purchasing soil (purchasing soil??? Yep. When you live in an apartment complex; not many people appreciate you digging holes in their yards so you can have some free soil…. $1.50 for a 40 lb pound isn’t bad – and I didn’t have to dig it up myself – just carry it upstairs and out to our balcony!).

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Our seeds came from St. Clare Seeds who specialize in non-GMO, non-hybrid, non-treated heirloom and open-pollinated vegetable garden seeds…. and worm poop!

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I’m NOT kidding. My son LOVES the worm poop. We use it in our compost bin now and it is just the coolest thing ever for him!

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Ok, ok, ok, so it’s actually called worm castings. But when you’re a 6 year old boy, what is cooler than worm poop in a bin of rotting food that will become soil and compost to make the food that you will be eating, some of which will be turned into…. well, I won’t go there. I’m not a 6 year old boy.

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We wanted <a href="http://www.outdora.com/lawn---garden-composters.html">these compost bins from Outdora.com</a>, but money being what it is, we'll have to wait. So our makeshift compost bins are thriving (one is full and sealed up to finish up its business; just got the second started yesterday).

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And our other bins are full of rocks, soil and seeds.




Oh… did someone ask,

So, what did you plant in each of them?

Oops.

We’ll get back with you in about 2-3 months.

Frugal living: Toothpaste

One of the last few things I’ve switched over is toothpaste. Because I’ve had inexpensive access I’ve just not been as concerned about it – though I still don’t like the artificial colors and flavors as well as the other unnecessary ingredients. If a child under 6 can’t safely use it, it shouldn’t be in the house.

 

Our current tube of toothpaste is not so bad as others I’ve seen.

Colgate Total Whitening Paste: water, hydrated silica, glycerin, sorbitol, PVM/MA copolymer, sodium lauryl sulfate, cellulose gum, flavor, sodium hydroxide, propylene glycol, carrageenan, sodium saccharin, titanium dioxide.
Without getting into a nasty debate about any particular ingredient above, I will say this: saccharin is less healthy than sugar but is equally unnecessary for brushing teeth, anything with the word propylene does not belong in our mouths and others are just downright unnecessary. I even have issues with hydrogen peroxide (again, if I have to keep it out of reach of my 5 year old…).

 

There are many variant recipes available for easy internet searching. A very basic one that follows all of my requirements above is so easy:

 

Toothpowder: baking soda and salt (3 parts soda to 1 part salt). Store in a small glass jar (we use jam jars for everything around here).

Brushing: Ideally 3 times a day, dip moistened toothpaste into and brush vigorously for 2 and a half minutes; follow with a flossing at least once a day.

Mouthwash: A thorough mouth-washing with warm salt-water takes care of the rest of the bacteria.

Frugal Living?

A friend asked me to write up some blurbs on simple, inexpensive, (almost) all-natural living. It’s a work-in-progress (along with everything else in life!), but following are a few tidbits.

 

When it comes to alternative solutions, I have a few requirements before I make a change:

 

Glorify God: Above all else, God must be part of every aspect of our lives. If Mary lived today, would she make this choice for her family?

Frugal: must be inexpensive – or at least less expensive than the current product – I’ll pay more for something that meets all my other requirements, but money is precious so it’s a tough decision (ie I used to use Seventh Generation spray cleaner; but the cost became prohibitive during a particular year in our lives, so it had to go – we switched to baking soda, vinegar, water and occasional dish-soap on everything)

Easy to locate all necessary ingredients/products: my time and energy is precious too

Easy to prepare: did I mention the preciousness of time?

Family participation: if the kids can’t use it or mix it up, then it just won’t work; I want the children to be able to help make things at home using natural materials so that they understand the connection between the things we utilize and their sources; also I need to not worry about locking things away from them for their safety

Safe for the environment: I’m not an environmentalist above all else – it’s just that God gave us stewardship over the earth and all its inhabitants and I want to take this responsibility seriously

Safe for our bodies: typical household cleansers make me physically ill – what are the long term affects?

 

If something fits all of this criteria, great! If not, I have to balance out whether it fulfills or enough or do we continue with our current practice or do we drop it altogether. Many times we have dropped the use of certain products completely rather than seek replacements, because nothing fulfilled enough of the above criteria.

 

And, for those who will ask: NO, I don’t do something just because everybody else is doing it – if it is something that becomes a huge stress, or requires more focus or time or energy than I am willing or wanting to give, or takes away time with God and family, or requires me to make sacrifices in other areas of life, it is just not worth “keeping up with the Jones’”. Not to mention that it is only in the last 100 years that many of our typical choices or products have become in vogue and we have already seen the dangerous results of some of those recent changes made without proper testing and slow implementation first.

 

Ensuing posts will focus on particular areas or products. Please share other ideas in comments, but for the sake of focus, please keep them simple and straightforward.