Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent

Tonight I made something that I have been wanting to make FOREVER and never have tried. I thought it was going to be complicated. It's one of those DIY things you pin on Pinterest, but never actually try. It took a total of total of about an hour, which doesn't include going to buy the ingredients you need because to be honest, who really has washing soda, borax, and a bar of laundry soap sitting around these days? So, I guess you could call this a multiple hour project. I went to Big Lots because they have scent crystals, similar to the scent beads, except half of the price. Although they don't come in the same scents as the scent beads, they are just as strong. This is also where I found the Zote bar for .90! The Borax was given to me by someone who has also tried to make homemade detergent and the Washing Soda I found at Walmart for $3.67.  

Things you will need:

Borax

Washing Soda (NOT BAKING SODA) 

Bar of soap (most use Fels-Naptha, I used Zote)

5 gal. Bucket with lid

Long spoon (preferably wooden to stop mix from boiling over)

Large pot

Cheese grater

The first step of making the laundry detergent is the longest task and the hardest you will work out of the entire process of making it. Grating the soap is fairly grueling. You want to make sure it is as fine as you can get it. It's takes a fair amount of time and not seem like you're getting anywhere but don't give up! It may take some time but it's well worth it in the end. 

You will want to fill the pot about half full with water and turn it on high. It needs to come to a boil. Once it's boiling, stir in the grated soap. Continue stirring. The soap will goop up as its melting, don't worry. Continue to stir until it is no longer goopy in consistently and entirely melted down. 

Add one cup of Borax. SLOWLY. Make sure you are stirring. During this process, a reaction occurs. If you add it too quickly, it will boil over. Wooden spoons help to keep pans from boiling over but we did not have a wooden spoon. We used a metal spoon and when it started to boil up and almost over, we started blowing on it. It did boil over once. Not a fun mess. 

Once that is stirred in and dissolved, add one cup of Borax. For some reason, when Borax is added, it thins the mixture down like this: 

It went from looking like it was going to boil over to perfectly fine. Stir that in and it will also dissolve. After dissolved, take the mixture off heat and turn off your burner. 

This is where the 5 gal. Bucket comes in handy. Fill up the bucket halfway with hot water. I ran the hot water until it was steaming and then started adding it to the bucket. I dumped a half of a bottle of scent crystals in the hot water and stirred. I wanted a stronger smell. For a smell not as strong, add less. They dissolved pretty quickly and gave the water a strong scent. The water turned pinkish in color. 

After that, you take the mixture from the stove and pour it in to the bucket and stir. Stir well. It will start to thicken up closer to a detergent-like consistency. Add water the rest of the way to the top of the bucket and let sit for 24 hours.

Now you know! Your clothes will be smelling wonderful AND be super clean for a fraction of the price you will spend buying detergent from the store! It breaks down to about 2 cents per load. Who doesn't love saving money? 

Homemade Egg Noodles

For those of you who may know me, I've never been big on cooking. EVER. I could cook chili in a crockpot, from buy-from-the-store canned items..... But that was as close as it got to "from scratch" for me. When I met Shawn, I decided it was time to learn to cook which led to many new (to me, anyways) recipes.... One being our DELICIOUS Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup. Seriously, best chicken noodle soup ever. It became about a once a week dinner with plenty of leftovers to share.... But the egg noodles were SO EXPENSIVE! Instead, I built up the courage to figure out how to make them from scratch. 😮 YOU, who couldn't cook to save your life decided to make them from scratch? Yes, yes I did, and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Okay, well maybe not the best but it comes pretty close! 

Bags of egg noodles at the store cost anywhere from $2.50+ without a coupon or a sale running, at least where we live, for like a 24 oz bag. That is nothing. I can go out and buy the flour, eggs, milk, and butter (though we already had all on hand) from the store for roughly $6-10, depending on what brands you buy, sizes, etc. maybe even less. One batch of the recipe I used made what I would consider to be at least 24 oz if not more. I could probably get AT LEAST 12 batches of egg noodles out of this one bag of flour. What's not to love about that? 

If you've ever made egg noodles, you will know that the mess is not really a fun mess. Flour gets every where. By the end of 3 batches, my counters were covered in flour, my table was covered in flour, my floors, my clothes.... I even had it on my face.  I usually don't pay much mind to recipes, but this one I followed exactly. I highly suggest doing so. Oh, and buy a pizza cutter or noodle cutter. We bought a pizza cutter from the dollar tree for well... A dollar! You will be happy you did. 

 

List of things needed:

Rolling pin

Pizza cutter or noodle cutter

Large bowl

Wax paper

Gallon ziplock bags (if you plan on freezing them)

Scissors

Ingredients:

2 & 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

Dash of salt

1 tbs of butter

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs, beaten

Put the flour in the bowl. Add in the dash of salt. Stir together.

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter in the microwave. It took ours 15 seconds to melt down. Crack the eggs and put the insides of the egg in with the butter. Add the milk. Take a whisk or a fork if you prefer and beat all together until it is thoroughly mixed together.

 Let's get on to the step by step.

 

First you have to somewhat mix all the ingredients together. When you can no longer stir them together, take the ball of ingredients out and knead it for about five minutes. I used my table to help knead the dough. If you do, don't flour the table yet! Remember, flour is so the dough doesn't stick to things, which also means it makes it that much harder to stick together. You should end up with a dough ball that looks like the picture above. If you don't, you probably did something wrong. Also, most people use a metal bowl. I didn't see that it mattered. I used a plastic bowl. It surely didn't make any difference. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, a towel, or just a plate. I had a plate that covered it perfectly. Let the dough sit and rest for 10 minutes. While you're doing that, fold your laundry or something. I lucked out and Shawn was folding ours! 

After the dough rests for 10 minutes, flour your table now. Spread the flour around on the table. Uncover the dough ball and remove it from the bowl. Place it on the floured area. I made sure both sides got plenty of flour before I started rolling out the dough with the rolling pin. You'll want to get the dough rolled about 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch thick, depending on how you want your noodles. Think of a dime or a quarter's thickness. It will look like this once rolled out:

 

You're getting closer! Take the pizza cutter and cut strips. You can play with the width of the noodles and make them however wide you want them. My first batch turned out pretty wide and thick, my second batch turned out much better, and my third turned out the best, pretty close to perfect. The strips looked like this:

Cut some wax paper and lay it out on the table, wax side up. Now, take each individual strip and cut them down into smaller strips. Again, cut them to the size you want at your depending on how you want your noodles to look. Once cut, lay them on the wax paper. Make sure you leave space in between them. I added more flour to them before I put them on the wax paper so there wouldn't be any issues with sticking. 

Repeat, repeat, repeat! The picture below is of three batches. 

 

Now sit back and relax, your noodles have to dry. I let mine sit for about an hour or so on each side. Most people use something to let the air flow through to cut the time down and let both sides dry and the same time. I didn't have anything to do that with so I opted for wax paper instead. I think it worked just as well. I just had to flip each noodle over and let the other side dry before storing. Once finished drying, I labeled my ziplock bags with the date, put the noodles in the bag, and stuck them in the freezer for later! They should stay good for quite some time in the freezer. I'd say two months, maybe more! So worth the work to save all that extra money!