I love going to Dairy Queen and getting one of those dipped cones. The best part of that is the hardened chocolate on top of the ice cream. I haven’t been to Dairy Queen in such a LONG time because I’ve been going to Tutti Frutti’s. They have all sorts of Magic Shell toppings there I’m going to figure out how to make each one of them now. I first had magic shell on top of some ice cream.

I was so excited at how fast the chocolate hardened, I decided to try dipping some ice cream cones in the Magic Shell. I felt like I was a little kid again. And then I put the sprinkles on top of the ice cream cone.

How cool is this? I look forward to more chocolate dipped ice cream cones.

The secret ingredient is Coconut Oil.

Homemade Magic Shell

3 oz of Chocolate Chips
3 tablespoons of coconut oil

Directions:

In a microwave safe bowl, add chocolate and coconut oil. Melt in microwave for 1 minute. Check after 30 seconds to see if the chocolate is melted. Poor over ice cream and enjoy!

I’ve been wanting to try cheese making for a long time now, and today I finally attempted to try it. I always thought that making cheese would be scary because it required boiling milk. If you boil milk to long it scorches the bottom of the pan. That’s a real pain in the ass to clean up too. It’s actually quite simple if you have a thermometer because all you have to do is wait for the milk to get to 90 degrees and take it off the stove top. No scraping your pot for a long time trying to get it cleaned.

Rennet is hard to find in this area and I’ve had a bottle of it sitting in my pantry for the longest time. The first time I made a batch of cheese, I used lemon juice in place of citric acid. That didn’t work very well. The cheese ended up more like fresh ricotta cheese. The second time I tried making cheese was with citric acid. You can find citric acid in the canning section at Wal-Mart.

I can not seem to figure out how they get the cheese to be so smooth. The cheese was stringy in the end like it said, but mine still looked very clumpy. I didn’t get all the cheese like in the picture I got the recipe from. Oh well, maybe the third time will be the charm?

Homemade Mozzarella Cheese

1 gallon whole milk  (I used vitamin d milk)
1 tsp. citric acid
1/4 rennet tablet (if you find liquid rennet the equivalent of that is 1/4 teaspoon of the liquid)
2 tsp. cheese salt (I used kosher)

Place milk in large pot with thermometer.

Sprinkle 1 tsp. citric acid over milk and stir.

Turn heat on med-low and heat milk to 90 degrees, stirring occasionally.

While you are heating the milk, dissolve 1/4 rennet tablet in 1/4 C. cool water.

When milk has reached 90 degrees, turn off heat.  Pour rennet over slotted spoon into milk and stir for 20-30 seconds.
Remove thermometer and let milk sit undisturbed for 8-10 minutes.

Milk should be like a thick gelatin.  Cut the curd into a grid pattern.

Stir gently for a minute and then remove the curd using your slotted spoon into a microwave safe bowl, trying to leave as much of the whey (the yellowish liquid) behind.

Pour off as much liquid as you can without losing any curds.  Heat in microwave for 1 minute. Stir, pour off liquid and heat for 35-40 seconds more.  Stir and pour off any liquid.  Cheese should start to stick together and look stringy.  If the curds are not sticking together you can heat for 35-40 seconds more.

Once your curds are sticking together and you have removed most of the liquid, add your cheese salt.  I usually sprinkle a little on, knead, and sprinkle more on until all the salt is incorporated.

After your salt is incorporated, heat the cheese for 35-45 seconds more until it is stretchy like taffy.  The cheese will be really hot, so it helps to wear gloves to work with the cheese.

Pull and stretch cheese until it is shiny and smooth.

Shape cheese into a log by kneading on counter top.

Recipe from Heart, Hands, Home (with better instructions and pictures of each step)

Next up on my list to try: homemade bacon.

Pinterest has me doing many odd things now. I’m more fashionable, which I never really was. The website has me making things like my own bath bubbles, body scrub and lip balm. I now even want to buy a sewing machine, because I want to learn how to sew. It will keep me busy during those long Winter months.

My latest pinterest adventure was making my own lip balm. It took almost a whole entire day for it to set, because it’s been very muggy and humid outside. This afternoon, I put two containers of lip balm in my bag to give to my friends and when I got to my friends house they were already melted. Be careful of what temperatures you store this in. It could look like other things. I ended up making peppermint, chocolate (4 or 5 chocolate chips), and lavendar. You only need about 8 to 10 drops of those.

The beeswax, I got at Hobby Lobby. It was about $16.00 for a whole bar of it. You get a lot and it lasts a long time.

The little storage container, I bought at the $1 store. Talk about cheap.

All the rest of the ingredients, I got at Swanson Health Products. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients from Delia Creates

1-2 TBSP. grated beeswax
2-3 TBSP. coconut oil
1/2 TBSP. sweet almond oil
5-10 drops of essential oil {added off heat}

Grate beeswax with a cheese grater. In a double boiler, melt the beeswax and coconut oil until all the beeswax is melted. Add in the almond oil and stir along with whatever flavor you choose.

I know what you’re thinking. A recipe for body scrub… have you gone mad? Nope. I haven’t. I thought this blog needed something else, since I’m interested in other things like gardening, photography, crafting, and of course cooking. Why not add those sections to my blog too?

Last year I crafted my own tombstones for Halloween and they turned out pretty neat. This year I’ve found a DIY grim reaper and ghost milk carton lights. You should see all the milk, I’ve been drinking.

Anyways…. all these ingredients you can either get online at Swanson Health Products like the Vitamin E oil, Coconut Oil, or Peppermint Oil. Sea Salt and Sugar you can find in the baking aisle at your grocery store. This body scrub makes your skin feel nice and soft afterwards. My friend who’s also starting a craft-ish type blog was kind enough to order the stuff for me.

Body Scrub recipe from deliciously organized.

Ever wanted to make a recipe that calls for a packet of taco seasoning but never had that? The packets that you get at the grocery store always have so much sodium in them and if you’re watching your sodium intake making your own taco seasoning is a good way to avoid that. I always have chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and cumin on hand in my pantry…..AND we’re always making our own tacos or Mexican food at home. Make a bunch of this and store it in a jar or Tupperware container and you’ll have taco seasoning all the time.

Ingredients from Smells Like Home

Ingredients

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup wheat germ (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together peanut butter, honey, oil and chicken broth. In a separate bowl, combine flours and oatmeal. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Place dough on flour dusted surface. Roll or press dough out to about 3/8” inch thick (mine varied somewhere between 1/4” and 1/2”). Use a small bone cookie cutter to cut out cookies. My cookie cutter was 2”x3/4”, but for larger dogs you may want a larger cookie cutter. Roll out leftover scraps and cut out as many as possible. Put cut out cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 14-16 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.
For gifts, once bones are cooled, place them in cellophane bags and tie with ribbon. Note, these will be more the consistency and softness of a cookie, not a biscuit.

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I was browsing foodgawker’s website and came across a blog that had these homemade dog treats. It is one of my book marked sites now for favorite food blogs. I decided to make these for my family’s dogs Toby and Turbo. They are both Bishons. Ben and I had to watch them this last week. They were pretty good dogs up until the day they had to go home. One of them was naughty and decided to do his only job inside. I will be giving these treats to my dogs tomorrow, how ironic after being a bad dog right? Oh well, gotta love dogs and spoil them rotten. Here are some pictures of them below.
I guess if you really want to make them for yourself to eat then you can too. I haven’t tried them at all yet, maybe I will have some for breakfast tomorrow morning. LOL.