Home Is Where The Heart Is

{Welcome to this months Home Is Where The Heart Is post! We hope that these posts will encourage you in your femininity and in the womanly domain of being a homemaker and home keeper. We hope that these recipes and tips will encourage you and get you excited about being a godly homemaker and that they would be a blessing to you! ~Bethany Ann & Johanna Rose}

Simple Tips & Tricks

• Acne Tip: To help close your pores and keep your face clean, simply splash your face with COLD water often throughout the day.
• Shiny Hair Trick: To help keep natural hair oils, when you shower, rinse your hair with the COLDEST water that you can stand. Hot water only kills and washes away your hair’s natural shine! 
• Ring Trick: It may sound weird, but clean all your rings with shampoo (baby shampoo works very well too)! My Mom had a jeweler tell once her to try it, and she did and we have never cleaned our rings with anything else since then!
• Hiccups’ Trick: When you have the hiccups, just take a paper towel and put it over a glass of water. Then drink through the towel, this works every time!
• Ribbon Trick: To keep ribbon from fraying (such as a Bible’s ribbon marker) put a bit of everyday glue on the end and spread around and let dry.
• Old Fashioned Paper Trick: To make a piece of paper look old-fashioned take a used tea bag and squeeze any excess liquid out. Then dab it all over a piece of paper and let dry to make it look old-fashioned.
• Upset Stomach Tip: To relieve nausea place one teaspoon of ground cinnamon into a cup. Pour over it half a cup of boiling water. Once mixture settles, drink and you will get great results!
• Fruit Pie Trick: When making a fruit pie, brush the lower crust with an unbeaten egg white. This helps prevent juice from soaking through your crust.

Homemade Mozzarella Cheese Recipe

• 1 gallon milk {Be sure that it is not ultra-pasteurized, any other kind will work including goat and cow milk!}
• 1 teaspoon citric acid*
• 1/4 of a rennet tablet*
• 2 teaspoons cheese salt*

Place milk in a large pot with thermometer. Sprinkle citric acid over the milk and stir. Turn heat to medium-low and heat milk to 90 degrees, stirring occasionally. While you are heating the milk, dissolve 1/4 rennet tablet in 1/4 cup cool water. When milk has reached 90 degrees, turn off heat. Pour rennet over slotted spoon into the milk and stir for 20-30 seconds. Remove thermometer and let the milk sit undisturbed for 8-10 minutes. Milk should be like thick gelatin. Cut the curd into a grid pattern. Stir gently for a minute and then remove the curd using your slotted spoon, placing it in a microwave-safe bowl, trying to leave as much of the whey {yellowish liquid} behind. Pour off any extra liquid without loosing the curds. Heat in the microwave for 1 minute. Stir, pour off liquid and heat for 35-40 seconds more. Stir and pour off any extra liquid. The cheese should start to stick together and look stringy. If the curds are not sticking together and you have removed most of the liquid, heat for 35-40 seconds more. Once your curds are sticking together and you have removed most of the liquid, add your cheese salt, adding a little at a time. Now heat cheese for 35-40 seconds more until it is stretchy like taffy. The cheese will be really hot so use rubber gloves, work with the cheese, pulling and stretching it. Do this until cheese is smooth and shiny. Shape into a log by kneading on a counter top. Place cheese into a bowl of ice cold water for about 5 minutes to firm up. Yields one pound of cheese.

* Citric acid, rennet and cheese salt can sometimes be found at specialty shops. You can purchase it online from New England Cheese Supply.

{Recipe found on Heart, Hands, Home Blog. See original post and pictures HERE!}