Facial Toner ~ Brain Booster tea ~ Pumpkin Hummus

In the midst of my morning routine lately, I have been forgetting to hunt down my recipe for my apple cider vinegar facial toner.  The empty bottle haunted me long enough.  Oh, I found several recipes for the toner on the internet.  That's now restocked.  I use lavender essential oil, because organic is expensive.  A 1/2 oz bottle is $37.50.

In search of that recipe, I dug out my essential oil/herbal DIY books, and came across my copy of this book. . .

. . . pages marked from last fall (I'm still laughing), with Cherry Bounce, Nettle Beer, and Strawberry Squash.  All page marked for this past spring/summer harvest.  I even had a shopping list tucked in the book, for what I needed for Cherry Bounce.   In hopes to be gifted this coming Christmas, ha ha ha!  There is always next spring, when nettle and fruit is in season. Yeah, my memory needs fine tuned.  Golly.  So one or more of these may get tested next spring.

In light of my lack of memory, I wrote down these "try-it's" in my little notebook of lists (for all occasions). It's keeping me organized.

In light of my lack of memory, I also made a large pitcher of "brain boosting" iced tea - organic green and ginkgo tea with spearmint to add some flavor.   My future brain will thank me.

Update on the pumpkin hummus - delicious!  There is a hint of the pumpkin flavor.  I love garlic, so it's just one more way to use the garden vs. having to buy more chickpeas, and we get good nutrition from it.  The texture is lighter, but flavor is good.  If you want the recipe it's online at: Kim's Cravings. I see allrecipes has one too, and several others online, just in case you want to try it.  I used one pint of my homemade puree, but followed the recipe otherwise.

Hubby is still raving about the flavor this morning.  Hm.  I should have planted more pie pumpkins, ha ha!

Here is a photo of the "deep fryer" utensil I use for blanching my freezer vegetables. It has a handle on it, I just didn't get all of it in the photo.  I don't have a deep fryer, and I can't remember where I purchased it, but it works great.  I didn't get all of my carrots done so, I'm back to that today as well. 

It rained all day yesterday, and with these temperatures now, it will take more than a day to dry up.  We are waking up to a chilly 55°F.  I've been up since 2:30am.  The carrots should have been done by now (5:59am), but my one daughter forgot to pick up my bag of ice.  Not once, but 3 times yesterday.  She needs to start taking shopping lists with her I think.