DIY - The Worlds Best Sugar Free Chocolate Syrip

One of my pet peeves is things that are sugar free that don't taste as good as the real thing!  The problem with these things is that they make you want the real thing even more and set you up for a diet failure.  Now I don't diet as a rule but it seems like more and more people I know are diabetic and I have a new son who I would like to save from that path so I have been developing sugar free recipes for my family that are just as good or better than the full sugar version.  The only problem I have found with this recipe is that I have been drinking twice as much chocolate milk now that it is sugar free. 

You Will Need:

1 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Cocoa
1/2 Cup Splenda Brown Sugar (This is twice as sweet as regular brown sugar)
1 tsp. Vanilla
A dash of salt

In a small sauce pan mix cocoa and brown sugar together first (this will make it easier to incorporate the cocoa in the water) and then stir in water, vanilla and salt.  Bring everything to a boil over medium high heat and allow to boil for about 30 seconds stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and cool completely.  Store in the refrigerator and use exactly as you would use name brand syrup.  I defy you to taste a difference!

Why My Food Saver is a Life Saver

This problem is one that just about every one who was born post plastic packaging can relate to.  When I went to squeeze some petroleum jelly out of the a tube the heat sealing on the back of the tube failed and I had gooey jelly leaking all over!  I was going to return it (it was almost brand new) but my crafty husband cleaned off the tube and resealed the back end of it with our vacuum sealer.

OK, so this is not life shattering "I can't believe it! I must run out and buy a vacuum sealer!" news but it did get me thinking.   I use my vacuum sealer every day and 90% of the time it is not to package things in the prescribed sealer bags.  I would go as far as to say that my sealer is the most important appliance in my home and I have a Kitchen Aid Mixer so that is saying a lot!  So if you will bear with me I am going to give you...

...my top 5 favourite uses for my FoodSaver sealer.

5. Quick meat marinade


If you vacuum seal meat with it's marinade it cuts the time needed to infuse the flavors!






 
4.  Keep apple slices from turning brown

No air, no oxidisation, no ugly brown apples!





3.  Re-packaging

My Freezer is full of items that I bought in bulk and downsized the packaging.  The funny thing is I am not going to say I save a ton of money by buying half a cow or 100 chickens in bulk and sealing them.  I do seal meat but that is not what I am talking about.  What I do is buy large cans of pizza sauce, (for about $4) with enough sauce for about 30 pizzas, and divide them into about 7 or 8 portions.  Each portion has three or four times as much sauce as one of the mini $1 cans of sauce you can buy at the grocery store.  I also do this with crushed and diced tomatoes, and pasta sauce.  The savings add up quickly!

2. Dry storage/ camping solution


These are almost endless but my best example is from a week long canoe trip I took with my husband.  I vacuum sealed an emergency kit with fire starter and some dry clothing that we could use in the event that our canoe capsized it rained every day and having some things that couldn't get wet was a life saver.  I also seal a lot of the emergency supplies we keep at home.

1.  Re-sealing non Food Saver bags

I reseal everything from chips to powdered sugar over and over again.  My personal favourite is cereal because I can start four or five boxes at the same time and they never go stale!  Because I reseal just about every thing that comes in a bag I never have to spend money on clips or containers to store things and I never have frozen vegetables escaping from the bags in the freezer or escaped pasta rolling around in my cupboards!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins

Tonight I needed to come up with a breakfast solution for my husband that does not call for me to get up in the morning and cook.  Normally I would have something on hand like English muffins or beagles but I have been snowed in for a week and have not made it to the grocery store.  His solution is to stop at Tim Hortons but I am cheap and don't like him to waste money when I can put something together at home.

The main thing you should understand about my husband is that there are two things that keep him happy, chocolate, and peanut butter so you may be seeing a lot of those two things on this blog.  The crafty part is how many things you can make with chocolate and peanut butter as a base.  Now these are not two things I associate with breakfast but since muffins are usually just cake we disguised with oatmeal or bran to make ourselves feel better I won't feel guilty about it.  After searching online and putting some recipes I found together with a chocolate peanut butter cookie recipe of my own I came up with the following.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins

Ingredients

Batter
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
3/4 cups cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Filling
1/2 Cup peanut butter
1/4 Cup powdered sugar

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F.  

Batter: In a large bowl blend eggs, sugar, oil, vanilla and milk.  Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix only until everything is moistened (the less you mix the better).

Filling: In a small bowl mix powdered sugar and peanut butter until smooth.

At this point you have two options, if you want to just have the peanut butter as a filling only, half fill your muffin tins with batter and put a dollop of the peanut butter mixture in the centre and then cover the peanut butter with more batter until the tins are two thirds full.  The other option is to melt the peanut butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds and pour it over the top of the the batter after you have filled the tins.  After this bake for about 10-12 minutes (for standard sized muffins) or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

All in all they turned out well and I ended up with enough batter to make 16 standard muffins.  Something I might try next time is to use cold coffee in the place of some of the milk because it would give a richer chocolate flavor.  They are not too sweet which is something I like for breakfast and my husband ate two before bed so it must be something he likes too.

DIY Dog Bed and Toy

This is my dog Ruger and his favorite blanket.

Cute right!  WRONG!  Last night he took MY favorite blanket and tore a hole in it!  I right there and then I decided that Ruger was never going to sleep in my bed again.  My only problem was where to make him sleep.  I looked up Dog beds online but for a dog his size they are expensive and I really didn't think he should cost me more money when I already going to have to buy a new blanket for my bed.  So I decided to make him a bed using his blanket and my duvet that he ripped.  The only problem is that I don't sew so I had to come up with a solution that involved no sewing and would allow me to take it apart to wash. I came up with the following.


If you want to make your own all you you will need is a fleece blanket a large quilt or duvet and scissors.  I would recommend using a synthetic duvet because they are easy to wash.

Start out by laying the piece of fleece right side up on your work surface. It works better with a larger blanket to lay it out on a floor. Smooth out the piece of fleece using your hand. Fold the fleece back on it self so that you have approximately a 1 ft. strip of fabric that is not folded under.  Your dog bed will be as wide as the folded section and as long as the blanket (less about six to eight inches in length).  If it is too long or wide at this point feel free to cut off a strip in either direction.  I cut off some of the length to make into a matching toy.

                                  

Fold the flap back over on the rest of the blanket

Cut a fringe along each edge making sure to cut through all layers of fleece. My fringe was about 3-4-inches long and about a thumbs width.  It is ok to make it narrower but if you make it any sorter it gets hard to tie.

To attach the top piece to the bottom, you simply tie the fringe together. Grab a set of fringe pieces (a top and a bottom), and tie three simple overhand knots in them.  When you get to the section with three layers of fringe grab and tie the two bottom layers as if they were one,

When you are finished tying turn the blanket so that the fringe is on the inside.  You should now have your finished cover.

For the stuffing fold the Qult/duvet so that it is approximately the same size as your cover.

Stuff the Duvet in the cover.

Give it to your dog to enjoy.

After I finished I took the leftover strip of fleece...

...tied a knot in the center...

cut each end into three strips...

...pared each strip with one from the other side...

...braided them together...

...and knotted the end.

Long story short he loves it!

The best part about this project is you can use old blankets from home or thrift store blankets.  Because they are blankets and not a bulky cushion they fit perfectly into the wash!  The only thing I would change when making the bed is to use a larger fleece and fold it into thirds, if you do the blanket will stay inside better if the dog trys to pick it up.

Why Crafty?

 

The defenition of Crafty Person is

1. Skillful or Clever 

2. a : adept in the use of subtlety and cunning  

    b : marked by subtlety and guile  <a crafty scheme>

The reason I chose Crafty as the theme for my blog is so that I can attempt to provide you with crafty schemes for having fun, creating things, cooking and as much more as I can cram into these postings.  Whether or not you find me skillful or clever is of course up to you.