No How-To Tuesday Link Party this week, as I’m busy rushing around the house and getting things ready for my son’s last day of school on Friday. The link party will return next week!

The post A Very Short Break appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to cook, particularly now that the weather is warming up. Fortunately, I’m married to a man who loves to fire up the grill even on the hottest of days, and he’s promised to grill dinner at least twice a week all summer. As if that wasn’t enough of a break, my son has agreed to help on the nights when Dad grills. How lucky am I?

This recipe for Japanese-Style Chicken Meatballs is one the two of them make together, with my son doing the pre-grilling work and my husband doing the rest. Me? I plop the fruit bowl on the table and get out the tossed salad I keep in the fridge all week, and let them do the rest.

If that kind of relaxing yet yummy meal sounds good to you, then you’ll love this recipe!

Recipe: Japanese-Style Chicken Meatballs

 

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Prep time

25 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

45 mins

 

Tender chicken meatballs with a gingery zing, these can be made ahead and frozen if you like.

Author: Katie B. of HousewifeHowTos.com

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Japanese

Serves about: 4-6

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 11 oz ground chicken (see Note)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp flour
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• ⅓ cup panko bread crumbs

Sauce

• 4 tbsp sake
• 5 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp sugar
• ½ tsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tsp cold water

Instructions

For Meatballs:

1. Soak bamboo skewers in water for at least two hours.
2. In food processor, or using hands, mix all of the meatball ingredients except the ginger. (If using hands, mix for several minutes to get the right consistency.)
3. Chill mixture 15 minutes.
4. Remove the chicken mixture from the fridge and, using wet hands, form 1-inch meatballs. (About 2 dozen.)
5. Thread 3 to 4 meatballs per skewer. Grill over indirect heat, turning frequently, about 5-7 minutes or until chicken is done. Brush with sauce (see directions below) repeatedly while cooking.

Make sauce:

1. In a small sauce pan, combine the first four sauce ingredients and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Add the cornstarch-water mixture, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened.

NOTE:

1. A mixture of both dark and white chicken works best. So does turkey! If using solely white meat, add 1 tbsp olive oil to the ground chicken to keep it moist.

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Feel free to make these Japanese-style Chicken Meatballs ahead of time and freeze them for future use. You can even freeze them IN the sauce to ramp up the flavor. When they’re defrosted, bring the sauce to a boil then use it to brush the meatballs while they cook.

The post Recipe: Japanese-Style Chicken Meatballs appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

I have been on the hunt for clever bathroom storage solutions. You see, Last month as I was Spring Cleaning our bathroom, I realized what was once an over-abundance of storage has become inadequate and cramped.

Okay, so I have a makeup and haircare product addiction, as well as an aversion to throwing away such products even if they don’t work. (Somehow, I always think time will improve them.) Plus, my husband’s cupboard under the sink had grown crowded with his medical supplies and other stuff I kept shoving in there. Oh, and don’t get me started on how full of junk the drawers were.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t given much thought to looking online for clever bathroom storage solutions. If I had, I’d have adopted these four ideas while doing the Spring Cleaning. Instead, I just threw out stuff, a lot of stuff, and now our bathroom is back to feeling spacious again. But, hey, there’s always Fall Cleaning, right?

(Clockwise, from top left:)

• Imagine all the extra storage space created by installing over-the-door shelves like this one from Martha Stewart! For short people like me, these would have to be for rarely-used stuff, because I’m not keeping a ladder in my bathroom.

• There’s not a lot of actual wall space in my bathroom, thanks to a strange layout and the previous owners’ horrifying decision to install a towering wall mirror above the bathtub — one so big there’s no way we could remove it ourselves, and the contractors’ price for removal is way out of our budget. But we do have one free wall where floating shelves like these from DIY Network would work perfectly!

• Toothbrushes sitting on bathroom counters really gross me out. Even if the counter is far away from the toilet, it’s still near the bathroom sink where people thoughtlessly flick their wet hands before they reach for the towel. (A habit, I might add, that drives me NUTS since I’m the one in our home who cleans the mirrors.) Storing them in the medicine cabinet makes sense, until the things fall onto the counter when you open the door. Storing them in notches cut into the shelves so they don’t fall, like The Family Handyman did, is brilliant!

• One thing my bathroom I’d really like? A place to store spare towels and wash cloths. I guess, since our master walk-in closet opens off the bathroom, the architect figured we’d just use a shelf in there. The architect clearly didn’t count on a woman with a shoe and handbag addiction living here. There’s no room in my closet for towels, doggone it! But there is a corner in the bathroom where I may hang doubled-hanging baskets like Shak In Style.

How’s the storage in your bathroom? Do you have all you need, or have you adopted some clever bathroom storage solutions? I’d love to hear about them!

The post Four Clever Bathroom Storage Solutions appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

The hummingbirds arrived here a bit late this year, but who can blame them? Why, just a few days ago it was snowing. In May! But the weather’s since turned nice, so now it’s time to think about how to care for hummingbirds so they’ll stick around for the summer.

How To Attract Hummingbirds

According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, hummingbirds don’t have a good sense of smell and rely, instead, on bright colors to attract them to their food. Given the shape of their beaks, they particularly enjoy the feasts to be found in tube-shaped flowers, which hold the most nectar.

Some varieties of plants that attract hummingbirds are:

• Angel trumpets
• Honeysuckle
• Foxglove
• Lily
• Flowering tobacco
• Butterfly bush
• Bee balm
• Fuschia

After locating sources of food, hummingbirds look for good places to nest. Unlike many birds, they don’t build their nests in holes in tree trunks or even standard bird houses. Since their nests are very tiny, they look for a sturdy V in the branches of trees where they can be sheltered from the wind.

Our backyard has a large catalpa tree which, in addition to providing flowers they love, offers many perfect places for them to nest. Since hummingbirds typically return to the area where they were hatched, each year we get at least a dozen hummingbirds setting up house in our yard (which means we also have to keep around 4 feeders going at all times).

Other trees that attract hummingbirds to nest:

• Crabapple
• Hawthorn
• Buckeyes
• Alders
• Cottonwoods

How To Help Hummingbirds Build Nests

The female hummingbird is solely responsible for building the nest. (Male hummingbirds are kind of jerks that way.) You can help make her job easier by keeping a good supply of soft materials they like to use when nest-building:

• Moss
• Cottonwood fluff
• Dryer lint
• Spider webs (don’t clear them around nesting season)

While nest-building, the females work incredibly hard, easily burning over 12,000 calories a day (wow, right?!) so it’s important to make sure they have plenty of food available. If you truly want to keep hummingbirds around, be sure to hang a feeder or two where they can safely feed without becoming your cat or dog’s lunch in the process.

How To Make Hummingbird Nectar

Heat in pan, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved:

1 part sugar
4 parts water

Let cool before pouring into hummingbird feeders.

Making hummingbird nectar is easy, but there are a few considerations involved:

• If your water has a lot of minerals in it, you’ll want to use filtered stuff or boil, then cool it, before measuring it for the nectar recipe.

• Don’t change the amount of sugar called for. The ratio is designed to simulate natural nectar: too sugar and it will go bad quickly, too little and the hummingbirds won’t be getting the energy they need to… well, flit about like hummingbirds.

• Don’t substitute honey, molasses, Stevia, agave or any artificial sweeteners for the sugar called for. Both honey and molasses can create a mold that will kill hummingbirds, while the others just don’t provide the caloric energy they need.

• Adding red dye isn’t necessary. They’ll find the stuff just fine.

How To Clean Hummingbird Feeders

It’s important to keep your feeders clean since dirty feeders breed mold and bacteria that can be fatal to hummingbirds. How often to clean them depends on the temperatures, but a good rule of thumb is to clean them weekly when the temps are 70F or below, every 3 days when they’re in the 80s, and daily if the temps climb over 90 degrees.

To clean the feeder, first drain any unfinished nectar. (Don’t even think about using it again!) Then pour a spoonful of dried rice or dried beans into the feeder, and fill it halfway with warm water. Cover the opening with your hand and shake like mad, letting the rice or beans act as scouring abrasives. Dump the feeder and rinse. As long as the old nectar was still clear, not milky, and there wasn’t any mold growing, you’re ready to refill it with fresh nectar and hang it again.

If nectar turns milky or black mold starts growing inside the feeder, you’ll want to disinfect it by adding 1/4 cup bleach to 1 gallon of water and soaking the feeder for an hour. Rinse repeatedly to get rid of any lingering chlorine before refilling the feeder.

Now, if you want to get truly adventurous, try feeding hummingbirds by hand! Just dress in red, then fill a clean shot glass or floral stem tube with hummingbird nectar and sit near where they’re used to eating, holding your hand very steady. It may take an hour or more of being perfectly still, but it’s a truly magical experience you’ll never forget!

The post How To Care For Hummingbirds appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

I wish I’d known in college how to get rid of cockroaches, because some of the cruddy apartments I lived in literally swarmed with the things when the lights were off. Of course, if I’d known how to clean properly — and insisted my roommates learn, too — I probably could have cut their population down significantly… or at least sent them to live at the neighbors. Now, even though it’s been over 20 years, I still shudder when I think of how the things skittered around in our kitchens and bathrooms.

*shudder*

See?

If you live in an area where cockroaches are prevalent, or in an older home or apartment building where they never seem to go away, don’t give up hope. While it’s almost impossible to completely rid a structure of them without heavy toxins, there are many steps you can take to reduce their population and send them looking for somewhere else to live.

How To Get Rid Of Cockroaches By De-Cluttering

Roaches love the smell of paper, which does a great job of holding on to a pheromone they put out to tell their friends when they’ve found a feast. Your first step in reducing roaches is to eliminate these potential bug-magnets:

• Stacks of newspapers and magazines
• Paper bags from the grocery store
• Unused cardboard boxes
• Other forms of clutter, especially on the floor or bottom of cupboards, where roaches can set up camp.

How To Get Rid Of Roaches By Starving Them

Roaches love to eat. To get rid of them, get rid of what they like to eat.

• Don’t leave food sitting on your counters, including fruit bowls.
• Store dry goods in tightly-sealed containers.
• Varnish or paint wood shelves to seal them, then wipe them clean regularly.
• Rinse your cans, bottles and plastics before putting them in your recycling bins.
• Empty trash daily.

How To Get Rid Of Roaches By Cleaning

A pile of crumbs or splatter of grease is an all-you-can-eat buffet for these bugs.

• Use a 50-50 solution of white vinegar and water to clean under sinks, around water heaters, and inside appliances.
• Vacuum behind your fridge and behind your washer and dryer. Mop the floor there, too.
• Clean inside your refrigerator regularly. (Yep, they can get in there.)
• Wipe away spills in your oven immediately.
• Keep your stove spotless.
• Never leave dishes in the sink. (If you’re following my daily household cleaning routine that’s not a problem.)
• Wipe your counters after food preparation, and sweep the floor after meals.
• Mop your hard floors regularly.
• Vacuum each room well once a week, and add one more high-traffic vacuum for each person and pet in the house.
• Don’t let laundry pile up.
• Keep drains free of grease.

How To Get Rid Of Roaches With DIY Roach Killer

Once you’ve eliminated the clutter, food sources and breeding areas through the above steps, you’ll want to repel roaches so they don’t return. Rather than call an exterminator to fog your house with toxic chemicals, try making some of these DIY Roach Killer Balls.

DIY Roach Killer Balls

1/8 cup Crisco or bacon drippings
1/8 cup powdered sugar
1 cup Borax (or boric acid powder)
1/2 cup flour (they don’t care if it’s white or wheat)
Water

1. Combine the first four ingredients, then add water until it forms a soft dough.
2. Roll into balls about the size of an olive.
3. Stashing two or three balls where roaches are likely to hang out — under sinks, behind appliances, in food cupboards, etc. (SEE NOTE BELOW)
4. Lightly mist the balls with water daily to keep their “scent” fresh.
5. Replace with fresh balls as needed.

The Crisco or bacon grease and powdered sugar in these balls attracts the roaches and gives them something to eat. But Borax has very sharp edges, so it tears up their insides and kills them. The result? Dead roaches!

Now, please note that Borax and boric acid aren’t the same thing, but they’re related. Boric acid will work much faster than Borax to kill the roaches, but some people don’t feel comfortable using it or would rather use Borax because they already have it from making homemade laundry detergent.

Either way, it’s a good idea to pop the DIY Roach Repellant Balls in a plastic berry container (which has vent holes that let cockroaches get in) and tape them shut before stashing them where kids or pets can get to them. Or put them down when the kids are asleep at night — which is when roaches usually come out, anyway — and pick them up in the morning.

Don’t forget: keeping your home roach-free requires constant diligence, so even if the roach balls seem to work you’ll want to stay on top of proper food storage, clutter and cleaning. Good luck!

The post How To Get Rid Of Cockroaches (and DIY Roach Killer) appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

Is it starting to feel like Spring for you yet? We only have 9 more days until school is out for the year, and I’m almost as excited as the kids! There’s just something wonderful about being in charge of our own schedules again, not to mention all the family time we get to enjoy when we don’t have to think about things like bedtimes and alarm clocks. It almost makes me miss our years of homeschooling… although our lives have since moved in other directions.

It’s not that we have any major plans. A trip to visit my husband’s family at the lake cottage in Minnesota, a trip to visit my family in Texas, replacing all of our carpeting and the kitchen tile with hardwood floors… okay, that last one is kind of a big deal. I’ve been wanting to do that since we bought the house nearly 8 years ago!

What are your plans for the summer? Any exotic vacations in your near future? Tell me about them in the comments so I can live vicariously, folks!

Meanwhile, let’s have a link party, shall we?

The Rules

- No giveaways, Etsy stores or stuff for sale.

- Enter up to three (3) of your own entries. (Please don’t submit round-ups or entries written by others.)

- Keep it a family-friendly G-rating, please.

- Link back to me somehow, please.

Entries are randomized, and will appear in a different order each time you refresh the page so everyone can make it to the top of the list.

Remember, the party is open until next Monday night, so be sure to come back and link up your great entries throughout the week!

The post How To Tuesdays #21 appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

Last week, my husband, son and I went to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in town as kind of a belated Cinco de Mayo, early Mother’s Day thing. It was a gorgeous day, and I’d worked very hard, so when I saw a picture of a frosty margarita on my menu, I just couldn’t resist.

Halfway through, I remembered why I don’t drink margaritas very often: those things are strong! (And that’s coming from a dedicated dry martini drinker.)

It was delicious, though. For days after I was craving another, so I stopped by the liquor store to pick up the fixings. One glance at the ingredient list on the margarita mix was enough to change my mind:

Water, high fructose corn syrup, wine, citric acid, sodium citrate, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate (to preserve flavor), cellulose gum, natural flavors, polysorbate 60, and FD&C yellow 5.

Notice what’s not in there? Actual juice. So I grabbed the tequila (Milagro) and headed to the grocery store to buy ingredients to make my own mix. Of course, I had to experiment a bit to come up with just the right combination of citrus juice, sugar and tequila, but I’m a hard worker that way, willing to slog down one margarita after another until I found the perfect combination… and then try it again the next day just to be sure. You’re welcome.

Homemade Margarita Mix Recipe

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

Sweet, sour, tart and tangy… an easy homemade margarita mix with none of the scary store-bought ingredients!

Author: Katie B. of HousewifeHowTos.com

Recipe type: Homemade Margarita Mix

Cuisine: Mexican

Serves about: 5 cups

Ingredients

• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup water
• 2 cups freshly-squeezed lime juice
• 1 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice

Instructions

1. In a small sauce pan, bring sugar and water to a boil, stirring constantly.
2. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue stirring until sugar is completely dissolved.
3. Remove from heat, let cool to room temperature.
4. Combine sugar water with remaining ingredients. Shake or stir well.
5. Can keep in fridge for up 2 days, or in freezer for up to 2 months.

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Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Great, Katie, but how do I turn this into margaritas???” Here’s how:

Homemade Margarita Mix Recipe

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

 

A margarita that’s not too strong, not too sour, not too sweet… in fact, it’s just right!

Author: Katie B. of HousewifeHowTos.com

Recipe type: My Favorite Margarita

Cuisine: Mexican

Serves about: 4

Ingredients

• ¾ cup homemade margarita mix
• ¼ cup tequila (I used Milagro Reposado)
• 1 tbsp. Cointreau
• 2 cups ice
• 4 slices of fresh lime

Instructions

1. Put all ingredients except for the lime slices into a blender and blend well. (For margaritas on the rocks, don’t put the ice into the blender. Put it in the glasses, but go ahead and blend the liquids together.)
2. Dip rims of glasses in water, then in sugar or salt.
3. Pour mixture into glasses and garnish with lime slice.

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These are delicious served with my vegetarian or seafood ceviche, or throw calorie-caution to the win and make up a batch of my delicious nachos!

You may like this equipment:
A margarita set with 6 glasses and a pitcher, Cocktail glass rimmer with 2 compartments and lid, and a citrus juicer.

The post Homemade Margarita Mix Recipe appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

How’s your week going so far? We’re counting down the days to summer vacation here (17), which makes it all the more surprising that last it snowed last Friday. What makes that even more surprising is that it was 80+ degrees the day before! Thankfully, I’ve resisted the urge to plant tomatoes and peppers, so I didn’t have to worry about losing plants to frost. Sometimes procrastination pays.

But I absolutely, positively MUST get the Spring Cleaning finished. So, I’ve decided to take the rest of the week off from blogging so I can focus on that. If the temperatures stabilize I want to get our garden planted, too.

Aside from that, here’s what I’ve shared with you this last week:

My Bruschetta recipe
How To Clean Patio Furniture
How To Sort Laundry (with Printable)

Now it’s YOUR turn to share. Have you cooked, cleaned, organized, laundered or saved money on something this week? Then share it with us so we can applaud your success!

The Rules

- No giveaways, Etsy stores or stuff for sale.

- Enter up to three (3) of your own entries. (Please don’t submit round-ups or entries written by others.)

- Keep it a family-friendly G-rating, please.

- Link back to me somehow, please.

Entries are randomized, and will appear in a different order each time you refresh the page so everyone can make it to the top of the list.

See you next week!

The post How To Tuesday #20 appeared first on HousewifeHowTos.com.

This bruschetta recipe causes a bit of an uproar in my house. I love its simplicity, and the bright, bold flavors of the tomatoes, basil and red onion on the garlic-rubbed bread. But it’s that garlic bit that my husband has a problem with. Specifically, once I make a batch of this, I can’t stop eating it and, well, no one really likes kissing someone with garlic breath, you know?

Garlic-related disagreements aside, even he concedes that it’s delicious and a great nosh with a cold glass of Pinot Grigio or Chardonnay. When made with entirely home-grown ingredients and served on homemade bread, as the morsel in the photo was, it’s like tasting heaven. Seriously.

Now, I’m not going to encourage you to go plant your garden based entirely on my bruschetta recipe. I’m not even going to tell you to make your own homemade bread. I am, however, going to encourage you to buy vine-ripened tomatoes for this if you can, and instruct you to allow whatever tomatoes you buy to ripen on your counter, stem-side down, until they are truly red and ripe.

Fresh basil, not the dried stuff, is also a must in this bruschetta recipe. So is good quality olive oil. Red onion and garlic? Well, do your best to pick out good ones, but I’ve yet to really find a huge flavor difference among varieties. As for the bread, go for a freshly-made baguette and use it the day you buy it or risk chipping a tooth. Really.

My Bruschetta Recipe

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

5 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

Bruschetta means an “oiled slice of toast”, and while it’s good on it’s own it is amazing topped with this mixture of tomato, basil and red onion. Mangia!

Author: Katie B. of HousewifeHowTos.com

Recipe type: Appetizer

Cuisine: Italian

Serves about: 24-30 pieces

Ingredients

• For the bruschetta:
• 1 freshly-made baguette
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, halved lengthwise
• For the topping:
• 1 lb. ripe red tomatoes (about 4 large), chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 6 basil leaves, chopped
• Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven broiler and move a rack to about 6 inches from the top.
2. Cut the bread in 1-inch slices.
3. Brush one surface with oil and arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
4. Broil 2-3 minutes until just golden brown.
5. Remove immediately from oven and rub each slice with the cut side of a clove of garlic. You can usually use one clove for two to three pieces of bread.
6. Combine the topping ingredients in a large non-reactive bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste.
7. To serve, arrange the bread slices on a platter, toasted side up. Spoon the topping onto the slices.
8. Note: to make ahead of time, or for smaller crowds, serve the topping in the bowl and allow guests to add it to their bread so it doesn’t get soggy while it sits.

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This is bruschetta recipe is a great appetizer to serve at barbeques or parties where there’s a bit of time between appetizers and the main course because it’s rather filling. You can make it a main course for a meatless night if you like by adding grated or shaved Parmesan to it and serving 4-6 pieces per person.

Oh, and if you have leftover topping the next day (though you won’t), spoon it onto boneless, skinless chicken breasts then bake them at 350 F until they’re done. Serve those with a tossed salad and buttered noodles for another delicious meal!

Equipment I Used:

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