Sunday in the Kitchen (Friday Edition) | Homemade Bum Butter

So it seems these days, DD has traded in her colic for teething. Oh boy.

All that excess saliva, which is more acidic than usual because of the teething, has given my poor girl a diaper rash. At least I think that’s the cause. I have never dealt with diaper rash before and I haven’t been doing anything different lately. We tried naked time to air it out, and while adorable, it wasn’t all that effective.

When you have never had a baby with diaper rash before, you don’t own any cream. Except that unopened Costco sized tub of Penaten from a well meaning family member that’s been sitting on a shelf collecting dust since early 2011. But of course that’s not cloth diaper safe. (insert eye roll here)

Always up for a challenge, I decided I would make my own. I remembered I had pinned a recipe from Green Child Magazine awhile back, so I made a shopping list and headed out the door. Like most of my projects, this one cost me double what it would have if I had just bought something at a store (even though I already had half the ingredients at home), but at least I now have enough cream to last me until potty training.

Here is my attempt at making homemade bum butter, as I like to call it.

Ingredients:

* 1/3 cup of coconut oil

* 1/3 cup of shea butter (I used organic raw African shea butter… this was the most expensive part, but it is phenomenal)

* 56 grams/2 oz of beeswax (works out to be a 1/4 cup)

* 5 drops of tea tree oil

First I measured out the shea butter and coconut oil into a sauce pan, then added the bar of beeswax and tea tree oil. Using the double boiler technique (another one of the things I learned from Jules), I melted the ingredients.

Then I poured the mixture into a bowl and put it into the freezer for about 15 minutes.

Here is what the mixture looked like before going into the freezer

 

And after

Then I blended everything until it was nice and smooth and poured some into an old mint tin.

What was leftover I scraped into a Mason jar for future use. I allowed the mixture to cool and thicken and then stored both that and the tin at room temperature.

There you have it, homemade bum butter.

 

Sunday in the Kitchen | Cold Crushing Concentrate

Hooray for blogging two days in a row!

Almost everyone in my house has been battling a cold since well before Christmas. Since I’m nursing and I try not to give D any medication if I can avoid it, we’ve been doing the usual natural remedies. Humidifier, saline rinses, hot water with lemon and a teaspoon of honey religiously every morning; nothing seems to have helped so far. It’s time to step it up a notch!

I have this friend, Jules. She is one of a kind. As my mother in-law would say, “They don’t make women like that anymore”. If anyone should have a blog, it’s her. She puts me to shame. She is the definition of a wife and mother. She takes care of her boys, cooks practically everything from scratch and she can bake a mean cupcake. I don’t think I have ever seen her wear anything but a dress, and yet she still manages to look like a bad ass.

She was kind enough to share her cold-killing recipe with me and to allow me to share it with you.

Here’s what you will need:

* 5 lemons

* 1 chunk of ginger (if there is a more technical term for this, I don’t know it)

* 1/2 container of honey (I used liquid organic honey, unpasteurized)

The first thing I did was slice up 3 lemons.

For crushed ginger, I used a spoon, first removing the skin (good thing I have Jules on speed dial… I almost used a cheese grater!)

I was unprepared for how time consuming this part would be. I felt as if I was very slowly whittling it down.

The smell is amazing though and makes the whole process worth it.

Once the skin is fully removed, I peeled the ginger directly into a bowl with the sliced up lemons.

Then I squeezed the juice of 2 more lemons over top.

If I could give any advice it would be to do this part first, before your hands are aching! Unless you have one of those hand juicer things, but I don’t. I haven’t been culinary that long.

Add your honey and voila!

I used a small spatula to transfer the mixture into Mason jars. I used 16 oz jars (the kind you would put jam in)

because that’s what I had, but you could use larger ones if you want.

Put it in the fridge to ferment.

When you feel a cold coming on, simply scoop out 1-2 tbsp of the concentrated mixture and add to a mug of hot water.

According to Jules, the longer you leave it in there the more potent it will get.

And that’s all there is to it. It was easy to make (if I can do it, anyone can) and delicious too! These colds don’t stand a chance now. I will keep you posted on the status of our sniffles.