Tuesday’s are usually my day off from the office. I like to sleep in, drink my coffee that Jeffrey has ready for me while I snuggle with a blanket and my bible. Once I get moving, which means I’m still in my jam jams with another cup of coffee, I start in on some projects I’ve been thinking about all week. Like this week, I’ve been thinking about homemade body butter and low sugar/sugar free strawberry freezer jam.
We have been experiencing the cold season at our house. Micah has been sick since last week, but it hit her hard on Monday. She been home all week except for a half day Thursday. Jeffrey has been getting a sore throat and I’ve had on and off sinus congestion and Jordan is sick now too. Yuck! Needless to say, the essential oils have been working over time and we are out of On Guard doTerra Protective Blend. I’ve got some on order and I want to try my hand at sanitizing lotion. However, since I’m out of On Guard I made some lotion with Wild Orange. I used a 1/4 cup of organic Cocoa Butter, a 1/4 cup of organic Shea butter that I ordered here, and 20 drops of Wild Orange EO. I melted everything together in a double boiler on the stove and used the mixer to mix it up. I poured it into a jar and let it cool.
I let this sit for several hours, then stuck my finger in the jar. It was rock hard. I have decided I do not like Cocoa Butter. I don’t like that it is really hard and I don’t like the smell. Since I used Wild Orange EO in this recipe, it smells like orange flavored chocolates, ya know, like from a Valentine box. Yuck! However, Jeffrey rubbed my feet with it and I liked how it softened them.
On Wednesday, I added coconut oil and some On Guard EO; since it came. I expected not to smell the Cocoa Butter so much, that wasn’t the case. Adding the coconut oil did soften the lotion to where is feels like lotion. I still don’t like it. But I am very impressed at how soft my feet are. I like to put lotion on my feet right after a shower, then put on socks. This will work great for that. I am not going to try to make my own again. I will use a pin from my Pinterest and link that recipe to my blog for you later.
Friday, we had some friends over for dinner and while the guys were in the living room discussing the upcoming Super Bowl, us ladies were in the kitchen talking about what we like to talk about; food. I was talking about the Sugar Free Crock Pot Jam and she mentioned freezer jam. I’m like hey, I wonder if I can make sugar free freezer jam. Cuz ya know, there is just something about the flavor of freezer jam. That got my mind spinning. I wondered if I could substitute arrowroot for store bought pectin. I’m not so sure store bought powdered pectin is all natural. I realize pectin is the fiber from fruit and that is why you can use apples instead of store bought pectin. So I did a bit of research. There are different opinions on using arrowroot to thicken jam. Some say yes, some say no. I say, let’s see what happens.
I had one bag of those frozen Schwans berries left. I thought I had used them up, but I guess not. Anyhow, I let them almost completely thaw and tossed them in my Ninja smoothie blender with 1 cup of my new favorite coconut sugar and 1 cup of my other favorite, Swerve (both of which you can get for a great price here) and I gave it a whirl. Once it was all blended I put a tablespoon of arrowroot in the blender and gave another whirl. It came out pretty thick at this point, so I just poured it into some jars I had on hand and tossed 2 of the 3 jars in the freezer.
The 3rd jar I put in the fridge overnight. As you can see, the thickness of the jam holds up to the spoon test. However, it’s not quite as thick as regular freezer jam. I can’t see that arrowroot was the way to go for thickening. Jeffrey and I like the flavor of this jam even better than the Sugar Free Crock Pot Jam I shared before, which is great when you only have time to put the ingredient in and head out for work.
We love to use jam in our yogurt with homemade granola. I found a wonderful recipe for homemade granola on www.lovelylittlekitchen.com. I really like this recipe, but I do not use all the sugar it calls for. I replace the brown sugar with Stevia instead.
The last project I had for Tuesday was making homemade caramel coffee creamer for Jeffrey. I’ve gotten him off the crappy store bought stuff with this little recipe. I use 1/4 cup of caramel sauce from Trader Joe’s, 3/4 cup of organic half and half and 3/4 cup organic 1% milk. I warm it up in a pan, mix it real well and pour it into jars. Jeffrey likes his coffee really sweet, so he adds stevia to it. He says it taste great and I say, it’s better for you. 😉
I hope you try some of these recipes for yourself. Have you made homemade lotion? How about homemade coffee creamer? I’d love to hear how you made yours.
♥Sabrina
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