Light and Fluffy Gluten-Free Pancakes (and a Vegan recipe too!)

Ahhhh pancakes. One of my absolute favorite foods. You know I go through these stages. It might be muffins one month, pizza the next... the past two months? It's been pancakes. I started playing around with ratios back in December or January when I was experimenting with gluten-free sourdough bread. I found the recipe over at "The Art of Gluten-Free Baking" and I was able to make a really good starter that made loaf after loaf of sourdough bread! It was wonderful! Until..... my starter died. Well it didn't die, it started to smell funky and when I tossed it and tried again (and again, and AGAIN...) I never was able to replicate that first starter. I'll try again soon... but I decided maybe it wasn't the right season for sourdough!

So how does this have anything to do with pancakes? I started thinking more about baking ratios. For the first time in months I started feeling creative in the kitchen again and I wanted to play! I know, I know... I'm a little late to the game. I've fought the use of kitchen scales for years because I don't think it's the easiest way to bake in the US. I grew up using cups & teaspoons, my grandmother cooked with cups and teaspoons and her mother before her... why change?

Consistency. Plain and simple. Most often if you follow a ratio, you get good results. And when you're gluten-free and ingredients cost 5x more than "regular" ingredients... you WANT good results. And it just so happened that Michael Ruhlman did too. I read his post on pancake ratios and I was intrigued. I knew I'd have to play around with the additional ingredients to make good gluten-free pancakes... but I bet this would work!

The basic ratio for pancakes is: 

2 parts liquid : 1 part egg : 1/2 part butter : 2 parts flour

Of course you add additional items like a leavener to help the pancakes rise, but basically this is how you create a recipe for pancakes. So.... I made gluten-free pancakes. I made LOTS of gluten-free pancakes! They were so good we had them for dinner twice, and for breakfast the past few weekends... until... (since we're budgeting our money very carefully) I was out of eggs... and butter...

Can you even MAKE good pancakes without eggs or butter?? I wasn't sure to be honest. I had tried them in the past when I was on a vegan diet and I probably tried making them a dozen times and they were each an epic failure.... except then I wasn't using ratios...

Would it still work using ratios?

You betcha! Those pancakes right above here? Yep those! Those are vegan gluten-free pancakes. The very first picture is this post is of the gluten-free vegan pancakes as well! They are THAT tall and fluffy!

Now there are a few catches... I have a sneaking suspicion these pancakes WILL work with different types of gluten-free flours, BUT I have not tried different variations (other than those I list below)... SO if you happen to be allergic to almonds or nuts and can't use almond flour, I do not know what a good substitute would be... however, if you try another flour make sure to use the correct ratio/amount of flour so that the batter will have the same consistency. Also, I did use a scale to get my measurements, but I've also included cup measurements as well. However, be aware that different flours have different weights, so if you use different flours, you need to measure them to get the same weight as the flours I used below.

Light & Fluffy Gluten-Free Pancakes (see vegan version below)
free of gluten and soy
adapted by Carrie of Gingerlemongirl.com
makes 9-10 pancakes
printer-friendly version

Dry Ingredients:

• 8 ounces gluten-free flour (I use about 3/4 cup brown rice flour, 3/4 cup blanched almond flour, and 1/3 cup arrowroot starch) 
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional, I think they would work fine without it!

Wet Ingredients:

• 8 ounces milk or non-dairy milk (I use about 1 cup almond milk)
• 2 large eggs
• 4 tablespoons butter (or ghee), melted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions: 

1. Preheat griddle as directed or place a large heavy-bottomed (well-seasoned cast iron) skillet on the stove. 
2. In a large bowl whisk together all dry ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir together well to create a thick batter. Allow batter to rest 5-10 minutes before using (can also be made the night before and placed in the refrigerator to make the next morning.)
3. On the preheated griddle or greased, heated cast iron skillet drop batter 2-3 tablespoons at a time to make 2-3" pancakes. Cook each pancake for about 2 minutes on medium-high heat. When the pancake has cooked through on one side, the edges will appear dry and you will see bubbles come up through the batter and pop when the first side is done. Flip pancake and cook an additional 1-2 minutes until the underside is golden brown. Serve pancakes hot with butter and pure maple syrup or molasses. 

Light & Fluffy VEGAN Gluten-Free Pancakes

free of gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, and animal products
adapted by Carrie of Gingerlemongirl.com
makes 9-10 pancakes
printer-friendly version

Dry Ingredients:

• 8 ounces gluten-free flour (I use about 3/4 cup brown rice flour, 3/4 cup blanched almond flour, and 1/3 cup arrowroot starch) 
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional, I think they would work fine without it!

Wet Ingredients:

• 8 ounces non-dairy milk (I use about 1 cup almond milk)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce or pure pumpkin puree
• 4 tablespoons light tasting olive oil
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions: 

1. Preheat griddle as directed or place a large heavy-bottomed (well-seasoned cast iron) skillet on the stove. 
2. In a large bowl whisk together all dry ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir together well to create a thick batter. Allow batter to rest 5-10 minutes before using (can also be made the night before and placed in the refrigerator to make the next morning.)
3. On the preheated griddle or greased, heated cast iron skillet drop batter 2-3 tablespoons at a time to make 2-3" pancakes. Cook each pancake for about 2 minutes on medium-high heat. When the pancake has cooked through on one side, the edges will appear dry and you will see bubbles come up through the batter and pop when the first side is done. NOTE that vegan pancakes will seem a bit more fragile when flipping than non-vegan pancakes do, they will still be okay! Flip pancake and cook an additional 1-2 minutes until the underside is golden brown. Serve pancakes hot with pure maple syrup or molasses. 

Frugal Accomplishments during March 2014

free image courtesy of Pixabay.com

March is always a good month for frugal accomplishments! It's a long month and money has to stretch as much as possible to make it through to the end. That means we have to get creative in how we spend our money and how we budget. March is a great month to find free activities, the weather starts getting nice and you can spend more time outside with a good walk or time with pets or your yard. We actually have a lot of yard work I should get started on to prepare spring beds! 

Here's a pictorial review of some of things we accomplished this month in our frugal and savings goals: 

• 52 Week Savings Challenge: First we've continued a special savings plan we started at the beginning of January called the 52 week Savings Challenge. If you haven't heard of this, there are tons of different websites explaining the process, for example check out this great board on pinterest with different ideas of implementation: 52 Week Challenge. Basically the way it works is for each week of the year you put the corresponding number of dollars into your savings jar or savings account. There are good reasons to follow this challenge at home or by using a savings account. Using a savings account will (of course) allow you to gain interest on this money, but sometimes people need the visual reminder of a jar at home. We are saving this money to use for Christmas next year, along with a few other items we'd like to have to improve our home. What has worked best for US in this challenge is to simply save the weekly average of the total amount of $1378.00, which we rounded to about $30 a week. Since the amount grows each week that you save, you would end up having to put a LOT in the jar/savings account by the end of the year, so it's been beneficial for us financially to simply use the $30 weekly average as opposed to the assigned weekly amount. Still, if we can keep this up for a year, this will make Christmas next year SO much easier than it's been in year's past! We won't have a credit card balance! 

• As a Non-Consumer Advocate/ Less Stuff: One of the things I'm working on this year is buying less stuff, especially "stuff" we don't need (and it's amazing how your needs vs. your wants change as you really think about how much things cost and how you can stretch of the use of items you already have! One way we practiced this this month was by repairing several items at home. Last month I patched my favorite pair of jeans. This month I spent 2 hours mending and repairing the edges of this old comforter I've had for the past 10 years. I bought the comforter for my first apartment out of college as a brand-new (but slightly damaged) set at Goodwill for $30.00. The sheets and matching pillowcases are long gone, but we still use the comforter! I rotate comforters since we have cats who like to throw up and drag tushes... but this one has been able to outlast all of that even with constant washings! I'm hoping to get another 10 years out of it with the repairs! 

• Leftovers for breakfast! We have always eaten leftovers for lunch, but I've expanded the practice to include leftovers for breakfast too. My favorite leftover breakfast is a baked sweet potato topped with butter, cinnamon, a little sugar, and pecans! 

• Less Products/Less Plastics: One way we're cutting back on buying products and packaging has been to cut out store-bought shampoo & conditioner. I've gone the "no (sham)poo" route and I use a variety of different ingredients to wash my hair. You can learn more about this method from a variety of blogs and facebook groups. My favorite facebook group is called: Toxin Free Hair Care: No "Poo"/ Low "Poo" Forum. Not only are you removing toxins from your home and body by using hygiene methods like this, but you're also helping to use less unnecessary containers and plastic packaging, so less "stuff" for the landfills. A great blog to help you get started on "no poo" or if you're simply curious about the process is: becoming peculiar (I love this title! lol). Also... you start to realize that "crunchy/hippie/granola" is not nearly as weird as you once thought... lol! The picture above shows a before/after on one of my mid-week hair days. I generally "wash" my hair about once every 4-5 days and by the 4th day or so it can look "greasy" so I use a "dry shampoo" that consists of a little cornstarch and a little cocoa powder. I sprinkle the mixture on my roots, rub it well into my scalp and then brush it out with a boar bristle brush. I fluff my hair with my hands and on the right you see the results after the dry shampoo. Again, for more details on HOW the process works and why you would even bother with such a crazy thing, please check out this blog post or MANY others (google it.. you'll be amazed at how many people do this!)

• Shopping store sales/ less grocery costs: I generally shop once a week for groceries. In the past month our grocery budget has been between $50 and $60 a week for two people. This is for mostly food only. I get our toiletries in bulk on amazon for much less about once every 5-6 months. The picture above shows my groceries from last week. This was a $49.38 purchase from Food Lion. I buy ONLY items that are on sale and I create my menu around the store sale items or items that I have a store coupon for. This way I save nearly 15%- 20% on all my groceries. This means the menu is not always exciting! However, we've saved a lot of money this way and  we certainly haven't gone hungry! I also focus on making sure MOST of what we eat is naturally healthy. Hubs (who is NOT gluten-free) is the cereal fiend and I'm hoping one day I can convince him to try the store brand cereals... we'll see... lol

• Homemade homemade homemade!! Gluten-free food products are ridiculously expensive, especially if you want something baked. Contrary to popular belief I actually don't bake that much. I did when I was writing cookbooks and creating tons of recipes for the blog here, but since I don't bake all that much anymore, you don't see nearly as many recipes (my apologies! lol! I need an ingredients allowance!)  I was craving pizza last week so I made the recipe out of my "Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook" (this is NOT an affiliate link, I do not make money by you clicking the link to amazon) and honestly we had forgotten how good that recipe is. We'll definitely be making that homemade pizza more often! 

• PANCAKES! In the same homemade savings arena... we've been making these homemade pancakes a LOT! This is by far my favorite pancake recipe and I discovered it and tweaked it a few months ago. I will share it on the blog soon. Seriously, I've made a TON of different types of gluten-free pancakes and these are by far my favorite! I can't wait to share it with you... I do not like admitting I finally started using a kitchen scale to make them... (and yes, I still prefer baking with cups & spoons, HOWEVER... I can admit that I see why serious bakers enjoy using a scale for recipes....man I hate admitting that... LOL)

• Choosing Joy, every single day! Being frugal not only means you spend less, it means you can choose to find great joy with less. And that has become a huge priority in my life. By choosing joy every day, I have been able to find joy in the most mundane of activities such as washing dishes or putting up clean clothes. I used to HATE these everyday tasks... and somedays are better than others... but by having less and enjoying what I do have, I have found SO much joy. I've written about this topic before, and I will write about it again soon. I hope you can find joy in being frugal! If you have... will you share in the comments below? 

Review: Gluten-Free Mimi's Whole Grain Muffin Mix

I met Melissa Friend (AKA Gluten-Free Mimi) several years ago at a gluten-free expo in Raleigh, NC. She had just started selling her gluten-free baked goods to local coffee shops and through direct order. She came by my booth, introduced herself and I was immediately drawn to her. Melissa had such a kind and thoughtful demeanor. We talked about our local gluten-free support groups and our favorite gluten-free things we enjoyed baking.

Several years later Melissa decided to change her business model when her husband was told he needed to eat a lower glycemic diet to stay healthy. She went back to the kitchen and re-worked her favorite muffin recipe to make it both gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, whole grain, AND gum-free (no xanthan gum or guar gum! Do you know how hard that is to find in a baking mix??). She also began experimenting with paleo recipes and creating a paleo "bun" mix, again free of gluten, dairy, and soy.

After many trials Melissa finally created two mixes that she felt could be game-changers. A gluten-free, whole-grain muffin mix, and an easy paleo bun mix.

I had been following Melissa for quite a while on facebook and when her business page hit 200 "likes" I won a bag of her gluten-free, whole grain baking mix. I couldn't wait to try it!

I seem to go through "muffin" spells... I won't bake them for months and then out of nowhere I'll make them for weeks on end and not get tired of them! I love muffins because they are easy, in perfect portions, and and I've always been someone who preferred the cake to the frosting, so muffins are sort of healthy cake in disguise right?

Well with this gluten-free baking mix, they definitely are!

The instructions are super simple! Simply add: 2 eggs, 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup applesauce, and 1 cup pumpkin puree to the dry ingredients. Scoop the batter into a paper-lined muffin pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. This mix makes 12 good-size muffins (and could easily make 24 mini-muffins, if you would prefer!)

I knew immediately that the mix would be versatile. Since there are no added flavorings or spices, you can customize these muffins with the ingredients you have on hand!

• Want banana nut muffins? Use 1 cup of mashed bananas instead of pumpkin puree and add 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. 
• Want chocolate chip muffins? Stir in 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract to the batter. 
• Want lemon blueberry muffins? Stir in 1/2 cup frozen or fresh blueberries and 1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest into the batter. 
• Want zucchini spice muffins? (Great way to use up too many zucchini!) Substitute 1 cup freshly shredded zucchini in place of the pumpkin puree. Add 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice and 2 tablespoons water to the batter. 

When I decided to make the muffins I had two super ripe bananas that needed to be used. So I used the bananas in place of the pumpkin puree and then added about 1/4 cup sliced almonds and 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips to the batter. Then I baked as directed. Easy peasy!

Michael loved the banana chocolate chip muffins and we love the crunch that sliced almonds add to baked goods.

I would highly recommend using this easy gluten-free baking mix from Gluten-Free Mimi. It's very hard to find gluten-free mixes that are not primarily made from high glycemic starches such as white rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca starch. I love that this mix contains buckwheat flour, millet flour, and even teff flour! These wonderful dense grains almost give these muffins a delicious "bran" flavor! Yet they are "light" enough to even please picky palates (such as my husbands!) I also just LOVE that Melissa does not include "gums" in this mix. For those who are sensitive to guar gum or xanthan gum, this mix is just for you! (Melissa uses flax seeds to help give these lovlies their wonderful texture, instead of the gums!) 

Gluten-Free Mimi is also working on a low glycemic coconut flour mix, so there will be many more options from her store in the future! Right now you can purchase mixes directly from her site: http://www.glutenfreemimi.com/ (check here for the shopping page: http://www.glutenfreemimi.com/products-and-recipes/ -> scroll to the bottom to add to your shopping cart and order!)

I hope to try the paleo baking mix in the next few weeks. When I do, I'll let you know how they turn out! Thank you so much for sharing your awesome mix with me Melissa!

Frugal accomplishments for February 2014

Red Velvet Cupcakes from my baking book:
The Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook

February's been a pretty good month so far. We've had our challenges, but overall I've enjoyed a lot of things that happened this month. My Dad is back in the hospital and that has been tough, because he was very sick when he went and his recovery has been very slow, but hopefully he is now on the mend.

We've been able to stick with our budget this month, going "cash only" for gas, groceries, and everyday necessities has been the best way to curb my overspending habits. It's definitely an inconvenience at times, but it's also brought about joys that I did not anticipate!

I've always been a quiet person by nature. Extremely introverted and I prefer doing things by myself or with my husband. But being cash only I've had to come out of my shell a bit. When you're looking for a bargain you often have to talk to people! You have to get out of the car. You have to shop in person, not online. Sometimes this is frustrating, but I've also met a lot of really awesome folks and I've learned to smile more. I've learned there is a HUGE difference between needs & wants.

A few frugal accomplishments this month have included: 

• A frugal Valentine's Day: Because the day was going to be low key financially, Michael and I found really creative ways to have fun and show our love. We made homemade cards, send small emails all day, I made Cheryl's homemade chocolates (for Michael, but I think I ended up eating them! LOL), I also made homemade gluten-free  red velvet cupcakes for a friend and we had a few leftover to celebrate the day. We spent dinner with no screens and just talked and really enjoyed our day. It was a wonderful Valentine's Day!

• Frugal traveling: With my Dad sick in the hospital we wanted to find frugal ways to visit him over the past few weeks. Thankfully I have some really great friends and we were able to stay with friends on our first visit. A week or so after our first visit Dad was transferred to UVA Medical Center in Charlottesville, VA so  I spent some time researching affordable places we could stay in Charlottesville. We found a truly wonderful resource called Alexander House Inn & Hostel. The facility has both a dorm-type facility (the hostel) where you share the large room for sleeping + a small kitchen area  + a shared bathroom, along with an inn that has several private rooms that you can rent for very reasonable prices. We rented a private room, hubs wasn't quite ready for the more frugal "dorm" option! lol (Not that I can really blame him...) You do share a bathroom with the rest of the inn visitors + all open spaces such as the kitchen area, dining area, and living room area. I LOVED how eco-friendly the inn was and how they encouraged recyclying, composting, and even harvesting rainwater for growing plants. It was an extremely relaxing place to be and was a welcome retreat after visiting with my Dad at the hospital. We met some other people visiting at Alexander House as well, but I never felt uncomfortable, and really enjoyed our private room. And surprisingly enough, it didn't seem strange to share a bathroom with people we didn't know. We never ran into a time when we needed it and it was occupied, so it worked out fine. (Oh admit it, you really wondered about that! lol! Especially if you have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, bathroom readiness is important! lol) Cute neighborhood as well and very close to the hospital. We also enjoyed the kitchen area and being able to make our own gluten-free meals in the inn. We took all of our food with us. This was incredibly helpful in saving money over the course of our trip.

• Frugal shopping: Bought 3 books at a used bookstore, will probably sell them on eBay after I'm through reading them. Bought bulk toiletry items from amazon. We won't have to restock on toilet paper or paper towels for months. (Hoping to also cut down on the amount of paper towels we use, would love to stop buying them completely one day.) 

• Frugal clothing: Patched my favorite pair of jeans in the hopes of getting another year's use out of them! The patches aren't even that noticeable! 

• Frugal reading: Downloaded an app from my local library to read ebooks. I read one book, but started having issues with the app even after removing it from my phone and reloading it. Will have to let the library know I had issues with it because I would love to use this resource on a regular basis! 

• Frugal Beauty & Hygiene Products: This month I started something I've wanted to do for a long time. As much as I enjoy using coupons to buy shampoo/conditioner/toothpaste/deodorant, etc... I've always wanted to learn how to make my own and go the "no (sham)poo" route with my hair. So I've made different homemade "lotions & potions" for shampoo, conditioner, and deoderant. I've been doing this about 3 weeks with fairly good results. It definitely takes some experimenting to find the right recipes that will work for your own personal body and hair, so I've learned a lot along the way. I'll share more of these homemade beauty product recipes once I feel confident they have been successful for me. 

• Frugal gluten-free bread: I found this recipe for gluten-free sourdough bread online and have been experimenting with it for several weeks. I've made 3 batches of bread with really good results. However this week something happened with my starter. It began to smell rather vinegary and not very sourdough-y, so I tossed it just in case it came in contact with some sort of bad bacteria or something. I am starting a new batch this weekend and I hope by next week I'll be able to make gluten-free sourdough again. The best thing about this bread is that if you can make it successfully, you don't need store-bought yeast (the wild yeast rises the bread), eggs, or milk. The bread is naturally vegan, frugal to make, and really delicious! 

• Frugal probiotics: A few years ago I tried making kombucha on a regular basis. Yeah, I'm kinda hippy dippy like that, and I do believe in the power of probiotics and their role in gut health. However, I just couldn't keep up with kombucha. It's kind of an involved process where you have to brew tea, let it cool to the right temperature, use the right types of sugar and tea and allow the tea to ferment for a week or so and then store it properly... and it's kind of like taking care of a baby... and this is probably a good reason I don't have kids! lol (Cats thankfully are pretty self-sufficient and are more than happy to tell me when they are hungry!) So enter water kefir. I liked the idea of water kefir and was willing to try it. I liked that it wasn't milk/dairy based and it sounded relatively easy to care for. You simply "feed" 1/4 cup of kefir grains about 3 tablespoons of brown sugar. Add enough water to fill your jar (I use a quart jar) and allow the kefir grains to ferment for 24-48 hours. (The longer you ferment, the less sweet the finished product will be.) Strain out the kefir grains and voila, you have water kefir. It's kind of like a slighly deflated soda and you can add different flavors such as lemon juice or lime juice or even fresh fruits and allow it to ferment longer to infuse the flavor of the fruits. A personal favorite combination for me is lime juice and ginger. This link will give you easy-to-follow, yet very detailed instructions on how to make water kefir. I bought my grains from amazon (since you really can seemingly buy EVERYTHING on amazon these days.) I've been fermenting the grains for about 3 weeks now and my grains have multiplied beautifully and are producing a very nice tasting water kefir. It sounds kind of strange, but it's a great way to get probiotics at a fraction of the cost of pills. Have you ever tried water kefir? I'll write a more detailed post about it later. 

What have your frugal accomplishments been this month? 

**These posts are inspired by my friend Carrie's monthly frugal accomplishments on her blog, "With all that I've been given" Please check out her wonderful blog and leave her some comment love! **

Frugal Tips: Homemade Dish Soap

So why in the world would you need to make homemade dish soap when you get a bottle at just about any grocery store for less than a dollar (especially if you're buying the really cheap stuff!) Well, I guess if you were stocked up you wouldn't really need too, but this is really fun to make, SUPER easy, and still probably costs less than the cheapest dish soap you can buy. I don't make it often, but we're in the "counting pennies" stage of January and it's a snow day and I'm not willing to go out to the Dollar General just to buy dish soap because I'm out. That's a wasted trip of gas in my opinion!

AND... hubs was so interested in what I was doing he stopped to come over to see how it worked. I told him it was science and he was in. Don't ask me about the actual science. I have no idea, I just know it cleans dishes when I'm out of Mrs. Meyers or Dawn and that's good enough to me. And I actually have all the ingredients on hand (because I've been known to make lots of other homemade household cleaning items) so it's a win win in our house.

Washing soda is SLOWLY becoming easier to find (I get mine from a local ACE hardware store, but you can also buy it from amazon (because what CAN'T you get from amazon these days?), and it's really key in this recipe. It's what gives the dish soap thickness over a day or so to make it act and feel like the dish soap you're used to buying from the grocery store. Make sure not to confuse washing soda with regular baking soda, while I've used baking soda in homemade clothing detergent in it's place, it's not the same product and it does NOT work in this recipe!

Finished and cooled dish soap with a drop or two of blue food coloring (optional!)

It took less than five minutes to "cook up" this bottle of dish soap. And it's enough for at least two weeks. We made the soap different colors just by adding a drop or two of food coloring, but you can simply leave it natural and it's a light lemon yellow color. Somehow my husband seems convinced it works better if it looks like Dawn! lol... So buy some castile bar soap, some washing powder (the stuff will not go bad, it's good forever!) and next time you run out of dish soap try making your own!

I use Dr. Bronner's castile soaps. I generally keep several bar soaps on hand along with a large container or two of the peppermint liquid castile soap and the lavendar liquid castile soap. Those scents are just personal preferences and you could use any scent for dish soap. Castile soaps are crazy useful and super inexpensive (considering they are very concentrated) and will clean just about anything. I've used them for washing everything from clothes, to floors, to bathrooms, to windows, to using them in the shower when I was out of our regular shower scrub! It's a very versatile and frugal item to have on hand.  

I would say this soap works just as well as any type of  non-concentrated Mrs. Meyers or Dawn or Joy dish soap. You can play with this recipe and add additional washing soda and grated castile bar soap to the small amount of water for a more concentrated soap. Beware though, that the more soap is added, the thicker the soap will become as it sits or ages. To thin it down, simply add a bit of warm water and close the lid and shake to thin it down.

A Small Batch of Homemade Dish Soap
Adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups boiling water
• 1/4 cup grated castile bar soap (I don't pack it - this also helps save money and keeps the soap from getting too thick)
• 1-2 tablespoons washing soda
• 1/4 cup liquid castile soap
• 10-20 drops essential oil (if desired)

 Directions: 

• Add grated castile soap to the boiling water. I do this right in my small stainless steel pot that I heated the water in. 
• Add the washing soda and liquid castile soap and stir to combine into a slowly thickening liquid. 
• If you are using plain castile soaps without any scent, once the soap has completely COOLED,  feel free to add 10-20 drops of your favorite essential oils such as lemon, orange, cinnamon, or mint to create your own favorite scented dish soap (you can also use this as a hand soap.)
• Pour cooled soap into a recycled plastic bottle or even a glass jar dispenser.  We've been using a ketchup bottle we washed out and re-used.