more crochet!

So I have been gone again! I have become addicted to crocheting I finally finished the blanket and  I have made more cozies and cat sweaters! My cats totally love all of their outfits.. mostly! Here are my cats modeling there sweaters and my cozy!

My sweet Clyde Burger!

Dax Cheese chillin 

Luna Pie trying to be bad

New and improved cozy! 

The Chubbo (Clyde) enjoying some gaming

Im still learning! I did attempt some slippers but I got confused and took it apart! So I am going to have to keep learning and hopefully I will be a pro soon! 
 

Vegan Buffalo Chicken Dip

So at my work, Walmart, they kept showing an ad for a buffalo chicken dip. Well Husband and I went back to vegan February 1st, so ranch was not an option for this dip. I looked up a few recipes and came across this one. It wasn't a pin because the site has no pictures.

Even though we do not watch sports, we had this dip on Sunday (Super Bowl Sunday), so it was sort of appropriate even though we did not participate. I also made pasta salad to go with it.




Recipe requires:
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- 3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 
- 1 teaspoon seasoned salt 
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder 
- 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
- 8 oz of silken tofu (most tofu is 14 oz)
- 16 oz of vegan cream cheese (tofutti is a great brand)
- 1/2 c PLAIN/UNSWEETENED soy milk (do not use the regular one because it can make the dip a little sweet)
- 3/4 c Franks sauce
- 1 package your favorite fake chicken, recipe says to use smart strips, but they were pricey
- celery for dipping (I also used cucumbers because I love to use them for dips)

- First preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Cut/chop chicken by hand or in chopper.
- Combine all the dry ingredients with soy milk and tofu in blender, then add cream cheese and Franks. 
- Place in pan and cook for 30 minutes.

I chopped the chicken by hand. So if you haven't caught on to my cooking style, I just can't seem to follow a recipe fully...I'm a rebel I guess. I didn't have thyme, and only bought one container of cream cheese because I didn't pay attention to the size needed. So since there would be extra silken tofu, I decided to use that in place of the extra cream cheese, plus its less fat and calories doing it that way. The dip turned out fine with that change. It was tasty but the first night it seemed like it was missing substance...like there wasn't enough chicken...it was like eating creamy Franks sauce with celery and cucumber slices. After being in the fridge, it was much better and thick like dip should be.

The next day, since I still had a bunch of dip left, I sliced up potatoes for breakfast and once they were cooked , I added some of the dip to coat it, they were fantastic! I did that twice. I had some left over so I made Franks pita sandwiches with the dip, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber. It was devine! So I followed the slogan... Franks Red Hot (chicken dip), I put that S*** on everything! HAHA

Cleaning Comparisons

First off, I would like to add that we had not been in the apartment in almost a month since we had bought a house but still had to finish out the last 60 days. We were growing potatoes...most exciting part of the cleaning...

The Dirty Burners

I have a few pins that I tested out on this cleaning venture. The very first pin was kind of a fail. The picture of the pin says "The no scrub way to clean your burners"...I still had to scrub a bunch! It was terrible.

Supplies Needed:
Dirty Burners
Ammonia
Ziplock bags

Supplies

First you place the burners in the bag with about 1/4 cup ammonia. I placed the bags in the sink in case they leaked. Leave overnight or 8 hours.

The next morning you will see some of the grease has come off and the ammonia is a gross color. After much SCRUBBING, I was able to the the burner cleaned. The pin might work if you clean your burners more often than we did at the apartment.

Next came the stove. I compared this pin which recommends baking soda and vinegar, against store brand oven cleaner, as well as baking soda with peroxide. I used the store brand cleaner in the oven, the vinegar mix under the top of the stove - where the crumbs fall, and the peroxide on the top of the stove. I left them over night, mainly cuz the oven cleaner required 8 hours and I had to go to work.

 The first pic is the oven with the cleaner which caked on after the hours went by. The second pic is the middle with the vinegar - you  can see the reaction between the baking soda and vinegar. The top is the baking soda and peroxide - which has no chemical reaction.

 The oven cleaner was fairly easy to scrub off and seamed to work, but when using it, I needed GLOVES and a MASK, the fumes are horrible, I'm glad my pets weren't there during this.


The peroxide did nothing really. For EASE OF CLEANING, its a tie between the cleaner (left) and the vinegar (right). For SAFETY, the winner is definitely the vinegar, by far! The cleaner can burn your skin and burns your lungs when using it, its way harsh! Plus I don't like the idea of cooking with the possibility of harmful residue still in the oven.

 Since the vinegar worked so well, I decided to use it on the burner pans for the stove. I only left it for about 15 minutes so I still had some scrubbing, but with the pic on the right, you can see the "before and after".

 



For the last pin with pictures, the DREADED MICROWAVE!!! Place a microwave safe container with 1c water and 1c vinegar inside and set to 10 minutes. 

This one worked, but I think it would have worked with just water since it just needs the moisture, but I guess the vinegar helps with germs. Now be cautious when doing this. around 6 minutes the liquid turned into a rocket and shot out of the cup and into the side, the steam fogged up the display. I was worried it would leave moisture, but it went away after about a minute.

Now, I tried a few more pins and cleaning tips. This pin has your place a paper towel soaked in vinegar around that build up around the sink faucet. I tried it and it did seem to make clean up easier. I also found that magic erasers are AMAZING! I had wasted an hour scrubbing the walls a week prior, then I went thru with the magic erasers and the walls are pretty much perfect. Another pin said to soak the cotton coals for perming hair in bleach and place around the tub corners to get rid of the mildew/mold that builds up. I was pressed for time and just used paper towels. It worked, but I think the coils for work better. I might try vinegar and baking soda next time I have that issue. Can you tell I'm loving the BS/Vinegar..its pretty great. Oh, I forgot, since we left potatoes in the cuboard, tsome became really gross and left the shelf black, I used baking soda and peroxide and it helped lighten the stain a bunch. :)