Recipe: Cheesy Crescent Rolls

Pinterest strikes again! I see all these crescent rolls with all sorts of stuffings and yummy stuffs on Pinterest and think to myself: I could do that!

Here's my first yummy crescent roll recipe.

Unroll the rolls. Spread a little melted butter with some garlic salt on the inside of each roll. Then, put some mozzarella cheese on the dough and roll it up. I used a good full pinch per roll. Sprinkle some italian seasoning on top of each roll.

Bake according to instructions (though we usually need to take ours out a minute or two early).

The end result: Yummy crescent rolls with a little twist!

Domestic Wednesday: Homemade Laundry Detergent

In my pursuit of making small changes towards a more sustainable life as well as learning about cloth diapering, I started hearing a lot about homemade laundry detergent. Conventional laundry detergents can be filled with all sorts of harsh chemicals and can leave a long trace of chemicals in our water.

We had been using scent and dye free detergent which was a step towards a more sustainable and less chemically-filled lifestyle, but after hearing everyone rave about making their own detergent, I gave it a shot!

I used my friend's recipe that you can find here. Many recipes use Borax, but her's does not. She explains about some of the sketchy effects Borax has had in some studies and links to some good resources. Her recipe is as follows. Use 1-3 tbs per load (about 2 per load of diapers):

• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup oxygen cleaner
• 1/2 baking soda
• 1 bar castille soap

I used Fels-Naptha soap instead and made a triple amount. I don't currently have a food processor so I had to grate the soap by hand. I did use my blender's ice crush feature for some of it, but it got gunked up in the bottom. :-/

Other than having to grate the soap, it was really easy! We still have some conventional detergent that we're using up, but I'm excited to get to try our new homemade soap!

My homemade laundry detergent! It smells great!

Recipe: Breakfast Burritos

I've always been a bit hesitant when it came to breakfast burritos. I am definitely not a huge fan of burritos with all sorts of things in them, but my simple made-at-home ones never seemed to taste as good as restuarant-made ones. Finally, I figured out how to make burritos at home that were simple, yet yummy like restaurant-made ones!


I started with cooking the bacon on our griddle. I also made scrabbled eggs in a large skillet. We used one pound of bacon and about 6-8 eggs scrabbled with milk.

Once the bacon is cooked, break it up into little pieces. Before the scrabbled eggs are completely done, add the bacon. While the eggs finish cooking, mix in the bacon. And here's the trick that I figured out: Add extra milk! This helps those real eggs get the extra "juicy" feel that the fake eggs from restaurants have.

Scoop the bacon and eggs into tortillas and roll up. We placed ours back on the griddle (with the extra bacon grease still there) to heat up and seal. These ended up being delicious! You could easily freeze them for quick morning breakfasts for feed a large crowd!

Our Night in L&D

Well, my rather boring pregnancy had a tiny bit of excitement last night. (Warning, pregnancy TMI incoming.)

I woke up about 1:30 am and dozed on and off until about 3. Finally, I got up and went to the bathroom. Still wide awake, I went and walked about in the living room thinking maybe my tummy was upset or something. A few minutes later and I feel a little trickle run down my leg. Obviously this is a bit concerning...

So I go to the bathroom and clean up. I decide I'm going to wait and see if anything else happens. If it's really my water breaking, it should keep going, right? Well, long story short, over the next hour there are no more trickles but just a general wet feeling. During this time, Philip's also gotten up with me and we decide to call Labor and Delivery and see what they say.

The nurse is very nice and says we should probably come in to have the fluid tested. It's a quick test she says and will let us know if it's amniotic fluid or if it's just one of the glorious joys of pregnancy. We pack up for a stay, just in case, and head to the hospital. It only took us about 15 minutes to pack and get to the hospital! That's pretty good timing if you ask me.

The nurses in L&D were waiting for me and took me back to a triage room. I get a lovely backless gown and get strapped to the monitors. The nurse checks me and I'm not even at a one. She said there's a little opening up, but not much at all. (Good news at 35 weeks.) Then she does the swab test.

Ten minutes later, swab test says there's no rupture! Yay! We can go home now, right? False alarm, go get some sleep, yes? Nope...

When they first hooked me up to the monitors my blood pressure was 140 something over 80 or 90. A bit high, but it was four o'clock in the morning and we had just rushed to the hospital to see if my water broke two weeks before term.

Anywho, the on-call doctor decided that I needed to stay on the monitor, have my blood pressure checked more, and have some labs run. The lab tech bruised me like crazy and was awfully cranky.  Blood and urine both come back normal and my blood pressure came back down to it's regular just below normal levels. We end up being there an awfully long time though... From 4 am to about 10 am that morning. The last two or three hours were just waiting on the doc for "discharge" orders (I was never technically admitted).

During our six hours on the monitor we saw several little contraction hills. They were never consistent and I just barely felt one of them. Eventually we are so tired, that Philip crashes with his head on my thigh and I doze in between blood pressure checks (the machine was set to check every 15 minutes which kind of limits napping abilities). At one point, the blood pressure cuff woke me up right at the end of a contraction. The nurse was never concerned and the irregularity of them means it's wasn't "true" labor.

Finally, we get the go ahead to go home (after never actually seeing the on call doc). I'm put on "modified" bed rest and told to rest as much as possible but no real restrictions. I also have to collect my urine for twenty-four hours. That's been a blast! Put this little plastic thingy on the toilet and then pour your urine into a jug that you keep in the fridge. Yep, the joys of pregnancy.

The on call doc was worried about pre-eclampsia, but I think she's just being overly cautious. Alex and I are fine and he's just got to wait another two weeks to get the all clear to come!