Boys are gross
OK, so not something I didn’t already know but still.
I could not look at Aaron’s room for a single minute more on Friday. So I asked demanded that he clean everything. I made him pick up and throw away every last piece of paper, string, broken toy, piece of crap off his floor. He had to clean out his toy box, bedside table and computer desk. He had to dust everything, wipe down all the surfaces and then sweep the floor. I then came in and used my awesome steam mop thingy to clean the floors. The best part was when I told him I want the floor clean enough to eat off. His eyes almost bugged out until I told him that it was a saying and we were not really going to eat off the floor.
So now his room is pretty clean, except for the cardboard boxes he is turning into a plane. Lets see how long it lasts this time.
The vacuum cleaner wasn’t broken
About 2 years ago we bought a really cheap vacuum cleaner from the local grocery store. It was cheap but it worked really well. For the last little while I’ve noticed that it wasnt working as well as it used to. We cleaned it out. Paul pulled out a fair bit of fluff and hairballs and it worked a bit better but no where near as well as when it was new. I thought that was that. Its a cheap machine, obviously has a short lifespan. I asked Paul to give it a clean so I could use it on the above mentioned boy’s room. Paul landed up taking the thing apart and actually washing one of the big sponge filters, which was disgustingly dirty.
Let me just say, the machine now works like I just took it out the box. It even picked up glitter off the tiles and carpet.
Moral of the story? Clean and service your appliances before throwing them out.
You can make cake using plain Greek yogurt and no sugar
I felt like making a cake for tea yesterday and I didnt have any diabetic cup for cup sugar replacement available. What I did have was stevia liquid. I searched online and found a simple trick for using liquid stevia as a replacement in a regular recipe. Basically 1 teaspoon stevia for each cup of sugar as well as 1/3 cup liquid for each cup of sugar. In my case I used plain yogurt.
The cake came out delicious!
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon butter (you can use the equivalent in oil)
- 3 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons stevia liquid
- 1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup lemon juice (you can also add a bit of lemon rind if you used a fresh lemon but its not necessary)
- Preheat the oven to 180C
- In 1 bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- In a 2nd bowl mix the butter/oil, eggs, vanilla, stevia, yogurt and lemon juice.
- Slowly add the dry bowl into the liquids bowl, mixing well as you add them together.
- Mix well until there are no lumps.
- Pour the batter into a prepared tin and bake for about 45 minutes.
- We ate this cake straight from the oven. It was totally delicious.
I was particularly impressed by the difference it made cleaning the vacuum cleaner’s sponge and the filter.
As for Aaron’s room, that lasted about half a day. We just exchanged lots of pieces of junk for large pieces of cardboard and an enormous box. Hopefully he finishes building his new airliner soon …