Day 3 & 4 - DIY tortilla mix and seeds

So it's only four days into my thirty-one day challenge and I am already behind on my posts.  October is turning out to be one hectic month.  Nevertheless, I am back with two new DIY projects today.  This is a caution that this is going to be a rather lengthy post as I am making up for my tardiness yesterday. The first one is a homemade tortilla mix that you can store in your pantry to be able to make quick and easy tortillas. Here is a link to the recipe, which I found on good old pinterest tortilla mix.  This site also has some other great recipes for mixes.

This was really simple to make. You basically mix all of the dry ingredients together and then cut in the shortening.

Then put it in a nice container in your pantry to access any time you want to make delicious homemade tortillas.

Whenever you feel like making tortillas you just scoop out two cups of your premade mix, add the wet ingredients, mix them together to form a ball and then divide the dough into equal parts. I believe I made 8-10 tortillas from 2 cups of the mix. Then roll them out and place them on a hot pan or griddle and they will cook up in about 4 minutes.

I kept them warm and pliable by placing them in between paper towel. Serve with your favourite filling and enjoy!

DIY project number two is storing seeds for spring.  For the past couple of years, my husband and I have had a smallish garden where we plant a few different fruits and veggies. Instead of buying seeds or seedlings from a store or garden centre we like to save seeds from previous harvests to use the next year.  This helps us to be a little more self-sufficient and not so reliant on grocery stores and garden centres to provide us with our plants.  Plus it saves us a few dollars on seedlings in the spring and it is really simple to do.

All you need to do, whenever you have a fruit or veggie that you would like to plant in your garden the next year is scoop out the seeds, rinse them clean and lay them out to dry.

Once they are dry (make sure that they are completely dry so they don't go moldy) store them in a container until next spring.  I purchased this container from the dollar store and put a sticky label inside each compartment to identify the seeds (because pumpkin seeds look a lot like acorn squash which look identical to butternut squash). Next spring they will be ready to plant!

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Home grown veggies

My husband and I recently moved into our first home last year and were really excited about having a backyard with our own garden where we could grow our own fruits and vegetables. We previously lived in a three story walk up condo where our gardening activities were limited to a couple of window boxes and planters.  Despite the meager space available to us we prospered fairly well with things like lettuce, green onions, a couple of peppers, strawberries, and one little green pepper.We even attempted to grow a pumpkin vine (and that's about all we got...a vine)

Now before I go any further I must confess I do not have much of a green thumb.  The fact that we have any fruits and veggies of our labour is mostly due to my husband (the fact that we have any living indoor plants is solely the achievements of him).  My favourite part of gardening is being able to go out and pick vegetable and bringing them into the house to make something delicious with.  So the other week I was extremely happy to find that our two little acorn squash plants that has so far only produced one little squash suddenly has grown at least three more squash with the prospect of another three (if the little bees have been hard at work).

two fruit for sure on this plant and I think the little one at the front will grow

There a couple of blooms that wont make it but there are tree more that might!

YAY!!!  And the best part of this is that we had grown these squash from seeds that we saved from a squash we purchased last year.  And hopefully, if we are lucky, next year we will plant more squash from the seeds saved from this years crop.  Ideally we will have an endless supply of squash for years to come all from one little fruit purchased at the local grocery store.  What an amazing gift.