growing up!

Julie Keeps Growing!

 13 months

 14 months

15 months

homemade maple syrpup

Since maple syrup is an import item, it's especially expensive here.  Pancakes are a staple in our house, and Garrett needs syrup to eat them, so I decided to make our own so we could have them more often, and enjoy syrup more liberally.  It's really quite easy and fast (can do it while making a batch of pancakes if we realize we're out).

Homemade Maple Syrup

Combine in a pot (large enough to leave room for the syrup to grow and not overflow as it heats)

     1 cup sugar

     1 cup brown sugar

     1 cup water

Heat it until boiling. I let it boil about a minute, so the syrup gets thicker.  Take care as it heats that it doesn't boil over and make a dreadful mess on your stove.  It happens suddenly!

After removing from the heat, add 

     1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring

This makes a little more than 12.8 fluid ounces.  In other words, it doesn't quite fit into this container, but if I make it on pancake morning, we manage to finish up whatever doesn't fit.  

I wrote the recipe on a re-used *real maple syprup* jar so I don't have to consult the cookbook every time I make it. Since I use a scale, I wrote the measurements in grams.  

200g = 1 cup of sugar

200g sugar + 26g molasses = roughly 1 cup of brown sugar. 

I added it all together to make just 3 ingredients that need to get dumped into the pot.  Very fast!

black *teapot* magic

My sister figured this out by accident.

It's got to be the easiest way to clean a teapot stained with black tea.  Here's my teapot, which serves us well making black tea for us every afternoon.

Make a pot of fruit tea.  I used some old loose fruit tea that is so old I don't feel like drinking it anymore.  But it would work just as well to make a pot you want to enjoy too.  After the tea has sat in the pot for a while, empty it.  Then when you clean it, the stains will come off with almost no scrubbing. I used warm water, soap and a sponge, and just rubbing gently gave that distinct line you see in the right photo.

 

Rinse it out, and it's good as new!