Homemade Lavender Hand Scrub

The Turtle's Kitchen is more than just recipes for great meals - I'm all about making things at home and doing DIY projects.  Today I'm sharing something that my Mom made: homemade lavender hand & foot scrub!  This is so easy to make, with only three ingredients.  It smells great, and can be used to exfoliate the hands and feet.  The olive oil makes your hands and feet feel smooth, and the lavender has a calming scent.  I love learning how to make things like this at home, because it saves money but it's also fun.

Here's the simple way to make your own body scrub...

Ingredients:

1 cup olive oil
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup dried lavender

Instructions:

Place the olive oil and lavender into a sauce pan.  Heat this until the mixture is warm.  Place the salt into a separate dish or bowl.  Pour the oil mixture over the salt, and mix it well until everything is incorporated together.  Now, you can put this mixture into jars and store it just like that.  Enjoy this homemade scrub!

 

 

Here are the ingredients and jars, ready to go.

Here is the lavender and olive oil mixture being warmed up.

This is the mixture being combined with the salt.

Here's the finished product!

Homemade Chicken Lo Mein

The theme of my blog lately has been Asian cuisine.  I've gotten really excited about testing out so many different Asian dishes, and everyone who has tried my concoctions has been impressed!


So in keeping with the theme, today's recipe is homemade chicken lo mein.  This is another crockpot recipe, but you can easily cook this on the stovetop if you don't want to use the crockpot.  This meal is really versatile, because you can make it with chicken, beef, or shrimp, and you can throw in any vegetables you have on hand.

I used carrots, onions, and celery for my lo mein vegetables, but feel free to toss in anything you want.  As for the noodles - I was able to find lo mein noodles at the grocery store, but if you have trouble, you can use a thick spaghetti noodle, chow mein noodles, or even egg noodles.


Ingredients:


Part 1:

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 tsp. soy sauce
1/4 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. corn starch

Part 2:

1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tbsp. oyster flavored sauce
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. honey
1 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. of red pepper flakes 
1 large carrot, peeled and diced 
1/4 white onion, diced
1 large celery stalk, diced  
2 cloves garlic, minced

Part 3:

2 tbsp. corn starch
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp. soy sauce
8 oz. lo mein noodles  

*yields 4 servings*


Instructions:

First, dice the boneless chicken into small pieces.  Into the crockpot, put everything from "step 1" and stir it around so that the chicken is coated in the sauce mixture.  Cook this on high in the crockpot for 1 hour.  Halfway through, stir it around to make sure the chicken is being cooked evenly.

When that hour is up, you are going to toss in everything from "step 2."  Make sure the veggies you are using are diced into small pieces, and mix together all of the wet ingredients for the sauce in a bowl before pouring it in.  Once it's all in, stir it around.  Cook on high for 1 hour.

15 minutes before that is done, boil the noodles on the stovetop and drain as usual.  Now, mix together the corn starch and water, and pour it into the crockpot along with the cooked noodles.  Add in the extra soy sauce.  Stir well, and let this cook for about 10 more minutes.

It is ready to serve.  I served this lo mein with my homemade pork fried rice (see my last blog post for the recipe.)  Enjoy!